Avelino J CRUZ JR

Introduction

Avelino J Cruz Jr is a name partner specialising in corporate & special projects, dispute resolution and administrative law.

He previously served as chief presidential legal counsel and acting executive secretary in the Office of the President of the Philippines.

Thereafter, he also served as secretary of national defence, where he brought a fresh civilian perspective to address the challenges faced by our country’s defence and military establishments. He was widely credited for introducing fundamental, comprehensive, and institution-wide reforms through the Philippine Defence Reform program. His unblemished stint in public service and record of success in the defence department have become benchmarks upon which others who followed have been measured.

Some of the groundbreaking reform initiatives started by his leadership have become the foundation of wide-ranging public sector reforms currently being undertaken.

He was admitted to the New York bar in 1991 and was a bar examiner in commercial law in the 1995 Philippine bar examinations. Cruz Jr served as president of the Philippine Bar Association. He is concurrently the president of the University of the Philippines Law Alumni Foundation and the Justice George Malcolm Memorial Foundation, both organised by prominent alumni of the UP College of Law.

Cruz Jr graduated cum laude and salutatorian from the University of the Philippines College of Law in 1977 and placed 7th in the bar examinations. As a student leader during martial law, he served as president of the University of the Philippines Law Student Government and the Student Council of the Ateneo de Manila University, where he earned his Bachelor of Science degree in Mathematics.