Chief Justice De Castro was elevated to the Judiciary's top post on August 25, 2018 by President Rodrigo Roa Duterte. She took her oath and assumed office on August 28, 2018. She joined the Supreme Court on December 4, 2007 as Associate Justice. She is an alumna of the University of the Philippines (UP) where she was a consistent college and university scholar. She finished in UP, Bachelor of Arts cum laude in 1968 and Bachelor of Law in 1972 at the top four of her class. She was Vice-Chancellor and a consistent member of the UP College of Law honor society, the Order of the Purple Feather. She was elected to lifetime membership in the Phi Kappa Phi International Honor Society and Pi Gamma Mu International Honor Society in the Social Sciences for academic excellence in her Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Laws degrees. She attended law courses in the International Law Institute in Washington D.C., USA and Harvard Law School's Program of Instruction for Lawyers in Massachusetts, USA.

Topic of discussion: Anticorruption, sextortion and judicial integrity