Justice Rhona San Pedro has been part of the judiciary for more than 30 years. She started her career as a Court Attorney in the Court of Appeals and afterwards, the Supreme Court. Thereafter, she became Presiding Judge of the Metropolitan Trial Court of Pasig City and, later on, of the same city’s Regional Trial Court (“RTC”), where she presided over Family and Commercial Court cases. For her exceptional work as RTC Judge, she was recognized as 1 of the 3 Most Outstanding Judges by the Society for Judicial Excellence and was awarded the Judicial Excellence Award (Chief Justice Ramon Avanceña Award) both in 2011.
An Assumption Convent alumna, she received her Bachelor of Arts degree in Communications from the University of the Philippines (“UP”), where she finished cum laude and was awarded the Presidential Pin and Student Council Service Award in 1986. She completed her Bachelor of Laws from the same University in 1990, where she graduated in the top 20 of her batch. In 2001, she completed and ranked 1st place in the Pre-Judicature Program of the Philippine Judicial Academy (“PHILJA”). She then participated in the Intensive Study Programme for Judicial Educators of the Commonwealth Judicial Education Institute in Canada and became a Fellow in 2010. In 2014, she attended the Intellectual Property (“IP”) Summer Institute of the Center for Advanced Research & Study on Intellectual Property at the University of Washington School of Law in Seattle, Washington.
Throughout her career, Justice San Pedro has lent her expertise in the development of the legal profession. She has been a law professor at the Ateneo de Manila University School of Law and an MCLE lecturer for the UP Law Center. She has been frequently tapped to conduct lectures, here and abroad, by both local and international organizations, including, the PHILJA, the World Intellectual Property Organization (“WIPO”), United States (“US”) Department of Justice, Supreme People’s Court of China, Nepal Judicial Academy, US Office of Overseas Prosecutorial Development Assistance and Training (“US-OPDAT”), Malaysian Judiciary, State Intellectual Property Office of China, Korean Intellectual Property Office, Department of Intellectual Property of the Ministry of Commerce of Thailand, Japan Patent Office, International Institute of Justice, International Commission of Jurists, UN Women, UN Aids, Global Counter Terrorism Forum, Central Labour Court of Thailand, among others.
She has recently written the first in a series of Benchbooks for Judges, entitled “Intellectual Property Adjudication in the Philippines” produced by the WIPO and the Australian government. She was also Chair of the Technical Working Group on the Bench Book for Commercial Courts and the author for the topics FRIA, Intellectual Property, Trust Receipts, Truth in Lending Act and Warehouse Receipts. She has written a Manual on FRIA and the “Highlights of the New Rules of Procedure for Intellectual Property Rights Cases”, in partnership with the USAID and the American Bar Association.
Justice San Pedro was a member of the first-ever Advisory Board of Judges of WIPO and is currently the Vice-Chairperson of the Commercial Law Department of PHILJA as well as member of its Curriculum Review Committee and its Sub-Committee on Selection of Members of its Corps of Professors. She is presently a member of the Supreme Court’s Committee on Commercial Courts, the working Vice Chairperson of the Technical Working Group (TWG) to Compile, Classify and Index all Pertinent Rules, Guidelines and Issuances on Pleading, Practice and Procedure, Vice Chairperson for Policy and Program Development of the Committee on Gender Responsiveness in the Judiciary, a member of the TWG on Bar Reform, the Chairperson on the TWG on Filtering Mechanisms for the Revision of the Rules on Civil Procedure and the Chairperson of the Committee on Legal and Technical Services of the CTA. In addition, she was part of the TWG on the Rule on Cybercrime Warrants and Related Issuances, the Sub-Committee on the Rules of Procedure for IP Rights Cases and for its Revision, the Topical Working Groups for the National Conference for the Revision of the Rules of Civil Procedure and Continuous Trial, and the Technical Working Group on Court Forms.
She has twice served as Examiner for the Bar Examinations – for Mercantile Law in 2019 and for The Law Pertaining to the State and its Relationship with its Citizens in 2020/2021.
She married a classmate who is now a Senior Partner at the Villaraza and Angangco Law Office and they have two grown up boys.