Cancio Garcia

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. Ripe for the judiciary after more than a decade of constant brushes with the law, he first sat at the bench as City Judge of Caloocan. Serving 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. Soon, then President Corazon Aquino took him back to Malacanang as Assistant Executive Secretary for Legal Affairs. Aware that he is a Jurist at heart, President Cory appointed him to the Court of Appeals where he served for almost fourteen years until 2004, first as 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, Justice Garcia reached the peak when President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo appointed him as Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, the Court's 156th Justice.

Cancio C. 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.

The youngest of four children and the only son of Juan Garcia and Benedicta Castillo, both illiterates, Cancio or Cancy to his friends, was born on October 20, 1937, in the remote barrio of Concordia at Alitagtag, Batangas. 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 College of Law of the University of the Philippines. 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.