Florin Hilbay

Florin T. Hilbay
Solicitor General of the Philippines
Incumbent
Assumed office August 20, 2014
President	Benigno Aquino III
Preceded by	Francis Jardeleza
Personal details
Born	(1974-03-19) March 19, 1974 Philippines
Nationality	Filipino
Alma mater	University of Santo Tomas University of the Philippines College of Law Yale Law School
Occupation	Lawyer
Website	http://www.osg.gov.ph/about/

Florin Ternal Hilbay (born March 19, 1974) is the Solicitor General of the Philippines. He ranked first in the 1999 Philippine Bar Examination.

Hilbay was initially appointed as acting Solicitor General on August 20, 2014,^[1] replacing Francis Jardeleza who was appointed as a Supreme Court Associate Justice. President Benigno Aquino III formally appointed Hilbay as Solicitor General on June 16, 2015.^[2]

He is a member of the faculty of the University of the Philippines College of Law since 2000, where he teaches Advance Constitutional Litigation.

Education

Hilbay finished his elementary and secondary education at the University of Santo Tomas Education High School. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics from the University of Santo Tomas in 1995. He earned his law degree from the University of the Philippines College of Law at UP Diliman and was admitted to the bar in 1999, placing first in the bar examinations.^[3] In 2005, Hilbay obtained his Masters of Law degree from Yale Law School.

He was a Fulbright Visiting Scholar at Boston College in 2001. He has also held fellowships at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law & International Law in Heidelberg, Germany, and the Asian Law Institute for Comparative Public Law in the National University of Singapore.

Early career

He first worked as a law clerk to Supreme Court Justice Vicente Mendoza, a noted constitutionalist who was a former solicitor from 1971 to 1973 and assistant solicitor general from 1973 to 1980.^[4]

Hilbay also previously joined the OSG as an associate solicitor under Solicitor General Simeon Marcelo in 2002. He also served as the Director of the Institute of Government and Law Reform of the University of the Philippines Law Center; a consultant to the Commission on Elections; and as the vice-chair of Bantay Katarungan (Sentinels of Justice), a civic organization formed by former Senator Jovito Salonga, purposefully created to advocate and strengthen the rule of law.

As a senior state solicitor under Jardeleza, he defended the Reproductive Health Law before the Supreme Court in 2014. He also handled cases on the Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP) and the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF). He was also the principal lawyer for the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) and the Bangsamoro. ^[5] He went on to become solicitor general. ^[6]

Writings

He authored a collection of essays entitled "Unplugging the Constitution" published and distributed by the University of the Philippines Press in 2009. The book tackled a wide range of issues involving constitutional law, constitutional theory, adjudication, legal hermeneutics, bar exams, marriage, psychological incapacity, free speech.^[7]

References