Regalado Maambong

Who was Regalado Maambong?

Regalado E. "Dodong" Maambong was a Filipino jurist, politician and member of the 1987 Constitutional Commission, which drafted the Constitution of the Philippines.

He was born in Santa Fe, Cebu. His father, Joaquin Tagalog Maambong, was a judge. He studied pre-law at the University of San Carlos in Cebu, before completing his law degree at Ateneo de Manila University, a Jesuit university in Manila. He passed the Philippines bar exam within the top 20 for the country. A criminologist, Maambong later served as the dean of the College of Criminology of the University of the Visayas.

Maambong served in both the Filipino legislative and executive branches of government. He was elected to the Batasang Pambansa in 1984 as a member of the Kilusang Bagong Lipunan.

After the fall of Ferdinand Marcos, President Corazon Aquino appointed Maambong as a trial judge in Cebu and then as a member of the 1986 Constitutional Commission. As a member of the Commission, Maambong helped to write and draft the Constitution of the Philippines drafted in 1987. Aquino then appointed Maambong as a Commissioner of the Commission on Elections, or Comelec.

Maambong retired from Comelec and ran as a candidate for Governor of Cebu in 2001. However, he was defeated Pablo Garcia. In 2002, President Gloria Macapagal as an associate justice of the Court of Appeals of the Philippines. He served as the chairman of the 15th Division of the Court of Appeals until 2009. Maambong made an unsuccessful bid for the Philippines Senate in 2010.