Section 1December 30, 1996, Sec./Art. 1

Section 3, Chapter 1 of Batas Pambansa Blg. 129, as amended, is hereby further amended to read as follows:

"Sec 3. Organization. – There is hereby created a Court of Appeals which shall consist of a Presiding Justice and sixty-eight (68) Associate Justices who shall be appointed by the President of the Philippines. The Presiding Justice shall be so designated in his appointment, and the Associate Justices shall have precedence according to the dates of their respective appointments, or when the appointments of two or more of them shall bear the same date, according to the order in which their appointments were issued by the President. Any member who is reappointed to the Court after rendering service in another position in the government shall retain the precedence to which he was entitled under his original appointment. and his service in the Court shall, for all intents and purposes, be considered as continuous and uninterrupted.