Felix Makasiar

Makasiar retired from the Supreme Court upon reaching the age of 70 in November 1985. He died 7 years later, on February 19, 1992, in Manila.

Makasiar's appointment as Chief Justice by President Marcos on July 25, 1985, replacing Enrique Fernando, was deemed as controversial. Had the tradition of seniority been observed by Marcos, Claudio Teehankee, who was appointed to the Court nearly two years prior to Makasiar, would have been elevated as Chief Justice. However, Teehankee had constantly voted to nullify the actions of the martial law regime, in contrast to the more favorable positions of Makasiar.

During Makasiar's brief tenure as Chief Justice, the Supreme Court issued two notable rulings favorable to the Marcos government. In Galman v. Pamaran, 138 SCRA 294 (1985), the Court ruled in favor of the defendants in the pending murder trial of Benigno Aquino Jr. after they sought the exclusion of their earlier testimonies before the Agrava Board previously tasked with investigating the Aquino assassination. In Ilagan v. Enrile, 139 SCRA 349(1985), the Court refused to act on petitions for habeas corpus filed in behalf of 3 lawyers who had been arrested and detained without warrants of arrest, ruling that the petitions were mooted by the subsequent filing of criminal informations for rebellion against the lawyers.

Makasiar served a total of 15 years on the Court, all within the term of his appointer and law school classmate President Ferdinand E. Marcos. He became chair of the Judiciary Code Committee, the vice-chair of the Committee on the Revised Rules of Court, and the first chair of the Sharia bar examinations inaugurated in 1984.

In Menez v. ECC, G.R. L-48488, April 25, 1980, a case involving the upholding of a teacher's compensation due to occupational disease, Makasiar expounded at length on the plight of public school teachers:

In questions concerning labor law and social justice, Makasiar's opinions for the Court reflected sympathies to the common man, and would sometimes resort in rebuke to injustices as reflected by the facts of the case. For example, in Carbonell v. CA, 69 SCRA 99(1976), Makasiar wrote:

The most prominent issues during Makasiar's tenure on the Court concerned the validity of the acts of the martial law regime began by Marcos in 1972. On those issues, Makasiar had been described as a loyal ally of Marcos and a consistent supporter of the President's New Society policies. He was among the Justices who voted to affirm the validity of the 1973 Constitution in the seminal case of Javellana v. Executive Secretary, 50 SCRA 33 (1973). More prominently, in Aquino v. COMELEC, 62 SCRA 33 (1975), Makasiar wrote for the Court as it denied petitions for prohibition which maintained that Marcos, whose original term as president expired 2 years earlier, held no legal office nor lawful authority. Relying on Javellana and Aquino v. Ponce-Enrile (which affirmed the validity of the 1972 proclamation of martial law), Makasiar wrote that Marcos was the de jure incumbent President of the Philippines.

Upon passing the bar in 1939, Makasiar joined government service as an attorney with the Department of Justice. He would not leave the government service until his retirement from the Supreme Court in 1985. Makasiar rose in the ranks, beginning with a stint with the Office of the Solicitor General, then as a trial court judge beginning in 1954. He was appointed Solicitor-General and Undersecretary of the Department of Justice from 1968 to 1970, and as Secretary of Justice from May until August 1970, at which time he was appointed as Associate Justice to the Supreme Court.

Félix Valencia Makasiar (November 20, 1915 – February 19, 1992) was the 14th Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the Philippines, serving in that capacity for four months in 1985. His 85-day stint as Chief Justice, abbreviated only because of the rule requiring mandatory retirement upon reaching the age of 70, was the second-shortest such tenure in Philippine history. Prior to his promotion as Chief Justice, Makasiar had served for 15 years as an Associate Justice.

Makasiar was born in Siaton, Negros Oriental, on November 20, 1915, to Agustín Makasiar and Petra Valencia. He finished his primary and secondary education in his home province. He completed his undergraduate studies at the Far Eastern University, and enrolled at the University of the Philippines College of Law, where he obtained his Bachelor of Laws degree, cum laude, in 1939. He later obtained a Master of Laws degree from the University of Santo Tomas.