Regina P. Geraldez
REGINA PADILLA GERALDEZ is the Zonta District 17 Area 1 Director for biennium 2020-2022. Gina, as she is known to her Zonta friends, served as the president of Zonta Manila 1, the oldest club in the Philippines and in Asia for 2 terms – from 2002 to 2004 and again from 2006 to 2008. She was also appointed as District Parliamentarian for two terms and has served as District Chair of the Service Committee, the Credentials Committee and the Elections Committee that handled the first electronic voting . She was elected as Chair of the District 17 Nominating Committee for biennium 2012 to 2014. She was one of the District Secretaries for 2016 to 2018.
Gina graduated with honors from the University of the Philippines (UP) in both for her liberal arts and law degrees. She obtained her Master of Laws degree from the University of Michigan and worked with the law firm of Baker & McKenzie in its Chicago and San Francisco offices. After 38 years of private practice, she retired from the Accra Law Office in December 2018 as a senior partner, co-managing and hiring partner. She has been active in professional and civic organizations – as President of the UP Law Alumni Association from 2003 to 2004 and as the President of the UP Women Lawyers’ Circle from 1994 to 1996 and which she continues to serve as director. From 2014 to 2016, she served as the Secretary General of the ASEAN Law Association, a regional organization of lawyers in ASEAN. She was the President for more than 15 years of the Immigration Lawyers Association of the Philippines. She was the bar examiner for Legal Ethics for the 2018 bar examinations. She is a Court of Appeals Mediator and has been teaching a scourse on Persons and Family Relations (online) in the UP College of Law for two semesters now.
She devoted 2 years of her legal career to government service, serving with the late Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago in 1988, as Associate Commissioner of what was then called the Commission on Immigration and Deportation playing a significant role in revitalizing and professionalizing the agency. She was instrumental in putting order to and simplifying immigration rules and procedures for the benefit of aliens and the general public. In 1989, she was appointed Acting Undersecretary for Legal Affairs of the Department of Agrarian Reform where she contributed to the formulation of many administrative orders and regulations to implement the institution’s mission.
Ms. Geraldez has delivered lectures in various international conferences over the years. Among her more recent lectures was one on “Practices, Challenges and Direction Towards Legal Harmonization in the ASEAN” delivered at the EU – Vietnam Strategic Dialogue Facility, under the sponsorship of the European Union in Da Nang, Vietnam,
She is the proud mother of 4 lawyers and the lola of two little boys. A third apo is expected in November. Her late husband, Norberto, was the Presiding Justice of the Sandiganbayan. In her retirement, Gina devotes herself to Zonta activities, real estate management and development and to her hobbies, piano playing and art collection.