Ex-SolGen, ambassador Raul Goco dies at 84

MANILA, Philippines (UPDATED) – Former Solicitor General and ambassador Raul I. Goco passed away on Saturday, August 16. He was 84 years old.

GMA News reported that Goco died due to pneumonia and renal failure, days after an operation to treat his aneurysm.

Goco served as Solicitor General from August 1992 to September 1996 during the administration of President Fidel V. Ramos, according to the website of the Office of the Solicitor General. Afterwards, he was appointed by Ramos as the Philippine ambassador to Canada.

Born in Taal, Batangas, Goco is a member of the Aquila Legis, a fellowship of distinguished Ateneo Law School alumni.

He was admitted to the Philippine Bar in 1955, and to the New York Bar in the United States in 1987.

Goco also took a post-graduate degree at the Far Eastern University, and special studies as a government scholar at the Academy of American and International Law in Dallas, Texas.

He worked at the Department of Justice from 1957 to 1961 focusing on agrarian disputes. He then became a solicitor until 1971.

In 1973, Goco was elected governor of the newly-organized Integrated Bar of the Philippines (IBP), serving until 1975.

He later became the first Filipino president of the Law Association for Asia and the Pacific (LAWASIA) in 1983, and the only Filipino member of the United Nations International Law Commission.

In 1996, he received the Dean Robert G. Storey Award for International Leadership. In 2006, he became the chairman of the College Assurance Plan (CAP).

Goco married Ma. Corazon “Marietta” Primicias, with whom he has 5 children. She is the daughter of former senator Cipriano Primicias Sr of Pangasinan.

Mrs. Primicias-Goco served as the head of the Presidential Commission to Fight Poverty under Ramos. – Rappler.com

Amb Goco’s wake is at Mt Carmel Shrine, Broadway Ave, Quezon City, with Masses at 7 pm daily. Funeral will be on Thursday, August 21, at the Loyola Memorial Park in Marikina, after a Mass at 10 am.