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DCA NIMFA C. VILCHES

Nimfa Cuesta Vilches is Senior Deputy Court Administrator (DCA) at the Office of the Court Administrator (OCA), Supreme Court of the Philippines. She was a family court judge in Manila appointed to her current post by the Supreme Court in August 2008. Vilches is a renowned family law expert in the Philippines and in the international legal community. A multifaceted and highly-rated lecturer, she writes books and articles that show keen grasp of the impact of law on everyday life.

Profile

Born to lawyer-father, Benito R. Cuesta I and an educator mother, Corazon Go, in Leyte, Philippines on October 6, 1956, Vilches graduated class valedictorian in elementary school and a Gerry Roxas Leadership and Scholarship Awardee in secondary school. She obtained her undergraduate degree of Bachelor of Arts in political science at the Jesuit-directed Ateneo de Manila University in 1978 and Bachelor of Laws at the Ateneo Law School in 1982. Vilches is currently a member of the faculty of the Ateneo Law School and is a holder thereat of the Chief Justice Ramon Avancena Professorial Chair in Civil Law. She joined the Supreme Court after admission to the practice of law in 1983 as Court Attorney to prominent Senior Justices Hermogenes Concepcion, Jr.; Jose Y. Feria; and Teodoro Padilla.

Vilches is the second of four daughters whose parents made efforts to provide them good quality education, adhere to proper work ethics and be well-prepared for the rigors of life but with an artistic balancing sidebar that the children also went to see the finest museums in the world. She is married to Salvador C. Vilches, Mediation Supervisor of the Philippine Mediation Center, Supreme Court, with whom she has two children- Beni Steve, IT manager of a university and Gian Frances Nicole, executive assistant at the Office of the Court Administrator.

In 1989, at the age of 32, Vilches was appointed Presiding Judge of the Municipal Trial Court of Barugo, Leyte, and later designated by the Supreme Court as Acting Judge in the Metropolitan Trial Courts of Manila, Makati and Caloocan to address clogged court dockets until her appointment as Presiding Judge, Regional Trial Court of Manila, Branch 48, in 1999. In fitting recognition of her exceptional performance as a regional trial court judge, the Judicial and Bar Council (JBC), Supreme Court, nominated Vilches to the post of Associate Justice of the Court of Appeals in 2004. And on September 26, 2006, she was awarded Outstanding Judge by the Society for Judicial Excellence, Supreme Court, after rendering consummate service as a magistrate for 17 years and for advancing the rights of women and children. She was promoted Assistant Court Administrator the following day September 27, 2006.

As Vice-Chairperson of the Committee on the Justice on Wheels program of the Supreme Court and its chief implementer, the undertaking made astounding turnout in the conduct of court hearings inside mobile court buses in faraway courts with no judges or urban courthouses with high criminal dockets that lead to the release of more than 2,000 detained prisoners and about 6,000 cases successfully settled (96% success rate) through the mobile court-annexed mediation (MCAM) in September 2009 or in less than a year of operation.

Vilches, in 2005, ruled on the trailblazing case (Herrera vs. Alba and Hon. Nimfa Cuesta Vilches, G.R. No. 148220, June 15, 2005) about the admissibility of DNA evidence in Philippine courts. The decision was affirmed in its entirety on appeal and was much quoted by the Supreme Court. That piece of verdict became one of the starting points of the 2007 Supreme Court Rule on DNA Evidence.

In 1999, Vilches founded the CASA-GAL Program in the Philippines composed of community volunteers for children in court that was chosen by UNICEF in 2005 as one of the innovative initiatives for children in Asia and the Pacific. Notwithstanding her impeccable professional qualifications, Vilches chose a road less taken that is- efficiently discharging her duties in the bench and in the effective administration of lower courts and at the same time fervently pursuing her over-a-decade crusade to fully empower women and children and broaden access to justice by the left-out sectors of society through knowledge-sharing, information dissemination and directly working with government, non-government organizations and community members. For an extraordinary work carried out, Vilches was conferred the prestigious 2009 Presidential Lingkod Bayan Award by the Civil Service Commission of the Philippines, the highest recognition given to a government official or employee.

Notable Positions and Achievements

Supreme Court

Chairperson, Bids and Awards Committee for Goods and Services, Supreme Court Chairperson, Ad-hoc Committee for Legal Fees, Supreme Court Chairperson, Grievance Committee, OCA, Supreme Court Chairperson, Personnel Evaluation and Review Committee, OCA, Supreme Court Chairperson, Subcommittee on Justice for Children, Office of the President, Manila Vice-Chairperson, Justice on Wheels Committee, Supreme Court Vice-Chairperson, Legal Research and Method, Philippine Judicial Academy (PhilJA), Supreme Court Member, Sub-Committee for Family Courts, Committee on Revision of Rules, Supreme Court Member, Committee on the Revision of the Benchbook, PhilJA, Supreme Court Member, Selection and Promotion Board, OCA, Supreme Court

Academe

Professor II, Philippine Judicial Academy, Supreme Court Professor, Ateneo Law School and holder of the Chief Justice Ramon Avancena Professorial Chair in Civil Law since 2003 Lecturer for the Mandatory Continuing Legal Education (MCLE) for the University of the Philippines Institute of Judicial Administration; Integrated Bar of the Philippines (IBP); Philippine Bar Association (PBA); Department of Justice (DOJ); and the Public Attorneys Office (PAO)

International Lectures

Lecturer and Session Chair, 4th International Conference on Family Law and Children’s Rights, Cape Town, South Africa, 2003 Lecturer, Asian Conference of Social Work Professionals, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 2003 Lecturer, International Conference on Children’s Rights, University of Ottawa, Canada, 2007 Lecturer, Phenomena in Juvenile Delinquency, International Juvenile Justice Observatory (OIJJ), Seville, Spain, 2007 Lecturer, 1st Asian Mediation Association, Singapore, 2009 Delegate, Philippine Delegation to the UN General Assembly Special Session on children, New York, USA, 2003

Works Published

B.P. 22: FAQs, Rex Bookstore, 2005 Are You Ready To Be A CASA/GAL Volunteer? 2001 DNA and the Courts, 2002 Trafficking In Women and Children, 2003 Making Juvenile Justice Work, 2004 Mediation: Reaching its Potential in Family Law Cases, 2006 No Nonsense Court Management, 2007 RA 9184 or the Government Procurement Reform Act: Bane or Boon, 2008 ADR: The Solutionist Approach to Unclog Court Dockets, 2009

Scholarships and Trainings

Oxford University, England, Children’s Rights: Moving Forward, sponsored by the British Council, 2001 Hertfordshire, England, Violence against Women: Tackling Trafficking, sponsored by the British Council, 2004 National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges, Nevada, Role of the Judge in a Family Court, sponsored by UNICEF Manila, 1999 National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges, Nevada, Evidence in Family Court, sponsored by the Supreme Court of the Philippines and City of Manila, 2000 Legal and Social Systems of Sweden, sponsored by Swedish International Development Aid, 2005 National Judicial Institute of Canada, Vancouver and Kelowna, British Columbia, Evidence, sponsored by the Canadian International Development Aid, 2006 National Center for State Courts, Orlando Florida, USA, Court Management, sponsored by the USAID and The Asia Foundation, 2007

External links

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