The Supreme Court En Banc has appointed Sandiganbayan Associate Justice Ma. Theresa Dolores C. Gomez-Estoesta as the new Court Administrator, effective September 1, 2025. She replaces former Court Administrator Raul B. Villanueva, who is now an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court.
Justice Gomez-Estoesta has served the government for 34 years. She began her career as a Solicitor at the Office of the Solicitor General from 1991 to 2002.
She joined the Judiciary in 2002 as Presiding Judge of Branch 6, Metropolitan Trial Court, Manila. In 2006, she was promoted as Presiding Judge of Branch 7 of the Manila Regional Trial Court. She held this position until 2014, when she was appointed to the anti-graft court.
At the Sandiganbayan, she served as Chairperson of the Seventh Division. Court Administrator Gomez-Estoesta was a multi-awarded judge, winning the prestigious Judicial Excellence Awards multiple times. In 2005, she received the Most Outstanding Judge for First-Level Courts and Best Decision in Criminal Cases Awards. In 2012, she was honored with the Chief Justice Cayetano Arellano Award as Most Outstanding Judge for Second-Level Courts.
She is also active in legal education. Since 2015, she has been teaching at the Ateneo de Manila School of Law and is a Professorial Lecturer at the Philippine Judicial Academy. She also served as Bar Examiner for Remedial Law and Legal Ethics in the 2024 Bar Examinations.
She earned her law degree from the Ateneo and passed the Bar in 1991. She also holds a Political Science degree from the De La Salle University, where she graduated cum laude and received the Gold Medal for Excellence in Political Science.
The Office of the Court Administrator (OCA) was created under Presidential Decree No. (PD) 828, as amended by PD 842, to help the Supreme Court manage and supervise all courts nationwide.
As part of the Strategic Plan for Judicial Innovations 2022-2027 (SPJI), the OCA is currently undergoing modernization to make it more responsive, service-focused, and better supported across regions.
A Central OCA Leadership Team, headed by the Court Administrator, will take the lead in setting overall strategy, policy direction, and innovation initiatives for the trial courts. At the same time, court administrative functions are being decentralized to the newly established Office of the Regional Court Manager (ORCM) across all judicial regions.
Six interim ORCMs were launched in 2024 as part of this ongoing reform. (Press release courtesy of the Supreme Court Office of the Spokesperson)
