18/09/2026
Congratulations to the National Director of the IBP Commission on Bar Discipline, Atty. Avelino V. Sales, Jr., recipient of the Jose Maria Panganiban Award for Law.
The IBP Camarines Sur is proud of you!
Atty. Avelino V. Sales Jr.
Lawyer, Educator, Bar Leader, and Institutional Steward
Recipient of the JOSΓ MA. PANGANIBAN AWARD
for Law
A Life of Law, Formation, and Faithful Stewardship
Atty. Avelino V. Sales Jr. has built a life of service where law, education, institutional stewardship, and Christian formation meet. He stands among those lay alumni whose contribution has not been confined to personal achievement but has been offered steadily to the formation of students, the strengthening of Catholic and Jesuit institutions, the ethical discipline of the legal profession, and the service of communities that depend on competent, principled, and morally grounded leadership. His life has been shaped by the classroom, the courtroom, the seminary, and the councils of governance; in each sphere, he has brought clarity of mind, steadiness of character, and a deep respect for institutions that form persons for service.
His career reflects a distinctive synthesis of the Holy Rosary Seminary tradition and the lay vocation in public life. The Seminary formed in him a philosophical and religious discipline that later matured into teaching, legal practice, bar leadership, and service to Catholic education. He carried into the legal profession not only technical competence, but a moral imagination trained to see law as a public trust. He has taught future lawyers, guided young minds in philosophy and religious studies, led professional organizations, and helped sustain educational institutions whose mission is to form persons of conscience and service.
The Panganiban Award fittingly honors a lay alumnus whose life has advanced the ideals of learning, public responsibility, civic leadership, and service to society. Atty. Sales belongs to this tradition. His record as teacher, lawyer, Integrated Bar leader, trustee, corporate secretary, and director of bar discipline demonstrates a lifelong dedication to intellectual formation, justice, professional integrity, and the common good. His witness is not merely a record of positions held; it is the story of a lay professional who has made competence a form of service and leadership a work of stewardship.
