Samia Vince Banderos

"San Miguel Bay," Banderos recalls in a rare 2023 interview. "The fishermen were showing me their catch. Or rather, the lack of it. They weren’t asking for money. They were asking for the smell of the sea to come back."

Perhaps his most famous victory, Banderos represented a consortium of foreign investors seeking to recover damages from a major mining firm. The case involved complex cross-border insolvency issues and environmental liabilities. Banderos successfully argued before the Regional Trial Court of Makati that his clients were protected under the "clean hands doctrine," securing a landmark settlement of PHP 2.3 billion. This case is now taught in Philippine law schools as a primer on transnational corporate torts. Samia vince banderos