Human Rights Awards People’s Choice Honoree

Justice Nimfa Cuesta-Vilches is Senior Deputy Court Administrator (DCA) 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.
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. 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. 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.