Cancio Castillo Garcia (October 20, 1937 – October 15, 2013) was a Filipino lawyer and jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the Philippines. He was appointed to the court on October 6, 2004, by President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and retired on October 19, 2007.

Early life

Garcia was born on October 20, 1937. The youngest of four children and the only son of Juan Garcia and Benedicta Castillo, both illiterates, in the remote barrio of Concordia at Alitagtag, Batangas.

Education

Starting his education at the P. Gomez Elementary School (Manila), and thereafter at the Arellano (Public) High School (Manila), he qualified for admission into the University of the Philippines College of Law. A product of the public school system, he graduated at the UP in 1961. He obtained a post-graduate degree in public administration as a government scholar from the University of Santo Tomas in 1967.

Career

Honing his skills in the legal profession by serving as the assistant at the Macapagal Alafriz & Mutuc Law Offices, he went on to serve the government, first as Legal Office, then as junior presidential staff assistant in the Legal Office of Malacanang, and thereafter, as solicitor in the Office of the Solicitor General, at that time headed by his former college professor, Solicitor General Estelito Mendoza. He first sat at the bench as City Judge of Caloocan. He served for more than a decade in that capacity, and having won a Judge of the Year award, he rose to the Regional Trial Court (RTC) in Angeles City and later to the RTC in Caloocan. President Corazon Aquino later appointed him as assistant executive secretary for legal affairs. He was then appointed as a judge of the Philippine Court of Appeals where he served for almost fourteen years until 2004, first as an associate justice, then as presiding justice of that court, a position he held twice – from March 14 to July 29, 2001, and April 11, 2002, to April 8, 2003. In October 2004, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo appointed him as associate justice of the Supreme Court of the Philippines, the court's 156th justice.

Death

He died on October 15, 2013.

Books

Some notable opinions