THE COURT ADMINISTRATOR, COMPLAINANT, VS. RODOLFO G. HERMOSO, JUDGE, REGIONAL TRIAL COURT, BRANCH 168, PASIG, METRO MANILA AND ROMULO FLORES, DEPUTY SHERIFF, RESPONDENTS.

These are two administrative cases against Judge Rodolfo G.
Hermoso, formerly presiding judge of Branch 168, Regional Trial Court with
station at Pasig, Metro Manila. The
first (AM No. R-97-RTJ) was based on the filing against him of a criminal
complaint by the Tanodbayan for alleged violation of Section 3 of the
Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act.^[1]
Included in this charge was the other respondent, Romulo Flores, his deputy
sheriff. The second (AM No. 2656) is a
complaint for disbarment against the said judge, based on the same case filed
with the Sandiganbayan.^[2]

Upon being charged in the Sandiganbayan, both Hermoso and Flores
were preventively suspended by that court. A similar measure was taken by this Court, which also ordered them to
comment on the information filed against them.^[3]
After they had filed their comment^[4]
as required, the Court referred this administrative charge to Justice Lorna
Lombos de la Fuente of the Court of Appeals for con­solidation with the
disbarment case previously referred to her, also for investigation, report and
recommendation.^[5]

Meanwhile, after reinvestigation of the case in the
Sandiganbayan, the Tanodbayan moved for dismissal on the ground of insufficient
evidence.^[6]
The motion was granted “without prejudice,” and the accused were
ordered rein­stated and declared entitled to all back salaries and emoluments,
“unless in the meantime administrative proceedings have been filed against
them.”^[7]

On February 18, 1986, Judge Hermoso filed a motion with this
Court to lift his suspension in view of the dismissal of the case against him
by the Sandiganbayan.^[8]
The Court resolved instead to await the outcome of the investigation being then
conducted by Justice dela Fuente.

The above-stated cases stemmed from a charge of bribery allegedly
committed by the respondent judge and his deputy sheriff in connection with a
civil case decided by the former entitled “Lilian Cabrera Ang v. Jimmy
Yu.” Lilian Cabrera Ang, complainant in this administrative case and the
graft case before the Sandiganbayan, was one of the plaintiffs and Lourdes
Nieva, co-complainant in AM No. R-97-RTJ, was one of the defendants in that
civil case.

According to the complainants, a default judgment was rendered by
the respondent judge on February 9, 1984, ordering the defendants to pay the
plaintiffs the sum of P75,000.00 plus interest and P5,000.00 attorney’s fees.^[9]
However, the parties later entered into a compromise agree­ment but the
respondent judge refused to approve the same and to release the payloader
earlier seized on preliminary attachment which the plaintiffs were willing to
accept in full satisfaction of their claim.

Release of the payloader, according to them, was conditioned by
the judge on the payment to him of P7,500.00, representing 5% of the equipment,
which cost P150,000.00. After haggling,
the complainants were able to persuade him to accept P5,000.00 instead of
selling the payloader at public auction, as he had threatened. The complainants promised to deliver this
amount to the respondent judge, but instead they reported the matter to Deputy
Court Admin­istrator Romeo D. Mendoza, who referred them to the National Bureau
of Investigation.^[10]

Acting on their report,^[11]
the NBI decided to entrap the respondent judge, thus: Fifty one hundred peso bills were marked and placed in a white
envelope to be carried by NBI Agent Angelica Somera, who was to pose as Lourdes
Nieva’s relative. She was to hand the
envelope to Judge Hermoso, following which the other NBI agents would come in
and take appropriate action.

As narrated by NBI Agent Somera, she and Lourdes Nieva went to
see the respondent judge in his office on March 2, 1984, to inform him and
Flores, who was also there, that Somera had the money. Hermoso told her to give it to Flores, who
asked her to follow him outside. Instead
she handed the envelope to the respondent judge who placed it on top of his desk,
saying the money would have to be counted by Flores. He asked Lourdes Nieva to call Flores back and she went out to do
so, but as Flores did not return, Hermoso placed the envelope inside the right
top drawer of his desk. Immediately
after Nieva left, which was the pre-arranged signal, the other six NBI agents
entered the respondent judge’s office with a photographer. Agent Albino Reyes, who led the group,
introduced himself and his companions as NBI agents and asked the respondent
judge for the envelope.^[12]
Hermoso opened the top drawer and a picture of the envelope while still there
was taken. Reyes then took the
envelope and invited the respondent judge to the NBI headquarters.

Reyes testified that Hermoso hesitated at first but later agreed
to go with them to the NBI headquarters. He refused, however, to give any statement or to submit to physical
examination of his hands to detect the presence of fluorescent powder with
which the marked money had previously been dusted.^[13]

In his own testimony before Justice de la Fuente, the respondent
judge claimed that complainant Ang filed the charges against him because he had
berated her for her insistence on the release of the payloader notwithstanding
that the decision had not yet become final and executory. He confirmed Ang’s testimony that he
practically drove her out of his office on February 17, 1984, and asked her to
send her lawyer instead to talk to him.^[14]

Regarding the entrapment, Hermoso averred that when Somera
proffered him the envelope, he told her to give it to Flores, who asked her to
follow him outside. Nieva did but
returned after a while and again instructed Somera to give the envelope to
Hermoso.^[15]
She made a second proffer but Hermoso again told her to give it to Flores. Instead, Somera placed it on top of his
desk. Nieve then left the room, and
immediately thereafter the NBI agents barged into his office.^[16]

Hermoso denied that he placed the envelope inside the desk
drawer, insisting that it was on top of his desk when the NBI agents came in.^[17]
Accordingly, he rejected the picture^[18]
of the envelope inside his desk drawer which he claimed was not taken in his
presence.

Like Justice de la Fuente, we prefer to give credence to the
testimony of the NBI agents, coming as it does from an unpolluted source. These agents had no reason to testify
falsely against the respondent judge. They were just doing their duty. By contrast, the respondent judge had to protect himself against the
testimonial and photographic evidence that he had received the envelope, and to
reject its implications of such evidence.

The defense offered by both Hermoso and Flores was that the
P5,000.00 contained in the envelope was supposed to be payment for the storage
and guarding of the payloader. If this
be so, one may well wonder over: a) the
manner it was received; and b) the amount of such payment.

The manner it was received was, to say the least,
suspicious. If it was an honest payment
of the storage and guarding fees, why was it not openly received and receipted
for, as in any regular transaction? Why
did Flores, by his own admission,^[19]
ask Nieva to follow him outside so he could count the money in the empty court­room? Flores could not explain.

The amount of the claimed fees has also not been explained
satisfactorily by Flores. According to
him, the daily storage fee was P50.00 and the guarding fee was P20.00 a day and
P30.00 a night.^[20]
Since the payloader was stored and guarded from January 5, 1984 to March 2,
1984, or for 57 days, the total charges would have been P5,700.00. Flores lamely explained that he merely
rounded off the charges,^[21]
which were not for him to reduce because they were payable to Danny Floro, in
whose premises the payloader was stored, and the two persons who guarded it.

It is noteworthy that when the payloader was finally released by
him on March 24, 1984, he accepted from com­plainant Ang a fee of only
P2,500.00.^[22]
Asked why, he said this corresponded only to the guards’ fees from January 5 to
March 24, 1984, and added that the storage fees would be paid by the
complainant directly to Floro.^[23]

If, as he earlier testified, the guarding fees amounted to P50.00
daily, and the period covered was from January 5 to March 24, 1984, or 80 days,
then the total would have been P4,000.00 and not P2,500.00. In fact, this amount was payment for the
total storage and guarding fees at the rate of P100.00 daily from February 29
to March 24, 1984, for a period of 25 days. February 29 was the date com­plainants Ang and Nieva went to see the
respondent judge and asked him to release the payloader in view of their
manifestation of satisfaction of judgment.

Was this admission of satisfaction of judgment neces­sary?^[24]
The respondent judge told the parties he could not release the payloader
without such manifestation because the decision he had rendered had not yet
become final. This was obviously a ploy
because he knew, or should have known that he did not have to wait because the
parties had entered into a compromise agreement. The respondent judge admitted that he had known of the compromise
agreement as early as February 17, 1984, and that the admission of satisfaction
of judgment was filed on February 28, 1984, pursuant to his instructions.^[25]
Yet up to March 2, 1984, date of the entrapment, he had not yet released the payloader,
obviously because he was playing for time so he could impose his demands upon
the complainants.

Since the storage and guarding fees had already been settled in
full on February 28, 1984, the only plausible reason for the P5,000.00 in the
white envelope is found in the testimony of complainant Ang.

According to her, she went to the respondent judge to secure the
release of the payloader to her in view of the decision in her favor rendered
on February 9, 1984. In­formed by the
judge that the release could not be ordered because the decision had not yet
become final, she submitted to him, on February 17, 1984, a compromise
agreement whereby the defendant agreed to cede to her the said payloader in
full satisfaction of the judgment. The
respondent judge nevertheless remained adamant and told her to let her lawyer
talk to him.^[26]
After talking with him, her lawyer in­formed her that the respondent judge was
asking for 12 sets of fluorescent lamps costing P1,800.00 each as a condition
for the release of the payloader.^[27]
As she could not afford this, she went to see the respondent judge on February
24, 1984, together with her lawyer and Lourdes Nieva, and haggled with
him. The respondent judge first
demanded P8,000.00 for himself and Flores but Nieva counter-offered with 5% of
the cost of the payloader, estimated at P150,000.00, and the respondent judge
accepted, but demanded immediate payment. As they did not have the money at that time, they left, the judge
advising them to submit a satis­faction of judgment, along with the payment, so
he could release the payloader.^[28]

Continuing, she said that on February 29, 1984, she and Nieva
returned to the court of the respondent judge. Only Nieva talked to Hermoso, but she could hear their conversation because
she stayed at the door and within earshot.^[29]
Nieva informed him that they had already filed their admission of satisfaction
of judgment but had not yet raised the money. The respondent judge warned her they had to do so or he would sell the
payloader at public auction the following week.^[30]
He even suggested to Nieva that she sell the payloader for P30,000.00 so she
could give him and Flores P10,000.00 each and keep the remaining
P10,000.00. In the end, however, he
agreed to reduce the sum to P5,000.00.

As against the respondent judge’s denials, we find the foregoing
testimony more credible for detail, consist­ency and truth. We also note that the complainants, who were
in fact adverse parties in the civil case in question, had no motive for
fabricating this common charge they have made against the respondents, except
to bring them to justice for their offenses.

We are convinced, on the basis of the evidence before us, that
the respondent judge, in connivance with his co-respondent sheriff, demanded and
received from the complainants, litigants in Civil Case No. 50328, the sum of
P5,000.00 as consideration for the approval by the said judge of the release by
the respondent sheriff of the payloader that the defendant had agreed to cede
to the plaintiff in full satisfaction of the judgment.

Their acts constitute a violation of the Anti-Graft and Corrupt
Practices Act, as charged in the information filed against them in the
Sandiganbayan, and also the crime of extortion, one of the modes of committing
robbery.

The dismissal “without prejudice” of the information
against them in the Sandiganbayan was based on the technical ground that the
motion to dismiss filed by the Tanodbayan was not tainted with fraud or grave
abuse of discretion. There was no
categorical finding that they had not committed the crime imputed to them.

For the record, let it be stated that the investiga­ting justice
recommended the exoneration of the respondents on the ground that their guilt
had not been established beyond reasonable doubt. In administrative proceedings such as these, however, mere
preponderance of evidence will suffice to establish the charges.

The respondent judge bases his motion for the lift­ing of his
suspension on the dismissal of the information against him by the
Tanodbayan. Such dismissal is no bar to
the continuation of the administrative proceedings against him. Neither did his non-appointment during the
recent reorganization of the judiciary automatically terminate these cases, as
there remain the questions of whether he is entitled to retirement and other
benefits and also, more importantly, whether he is fit to remain a member of
the Philippine bar.

We decide these questions against him. As for his co-respondent, he is also denied reinstatement and
deprived of the benefits he would otherwise have validly claimed had he
comported himself properly as a public functionary.

It is no over-statement to say that, in a very real sense, the
success of our democracy will depend on the faith of the people in the judiciary
as the impartial dispenser of justice. That faith will grow or dwindle according as the judges are honest or
corrupt. Realizing this, we have
endeavored to purify the bench as much as we are able, that the misdeeds of a
relatively few may not taint the name of all. This endeavor will continue until the judiciary is washed clean and
white.

A similar effort should be made and maintained in the legal
profession so that every lawyer, as an officer of the court, may pursue only
the highest standards in the practice of his calling.

WHEREFORE, the Court holds as follows:

a) In AM No. R-97-RTJ, Judge Rodolfo G. Hermoso and Deputy Sheriff
Romulo Flores are both declared guilty of gross misconduct and considered
DISMISSED from their respective offices as of the date of their preventive
suspension on March 27, 1984, with forfeiture of whatever retirement and other
benefits they would otherwise have been entitled to; and

b) In AM No. 2656, Judge Rodolfo G. Hermoso is hereby DISBARRED
for conduct unbecoming a member of the legal profession.

SO ORDERED.

Teehankee, C.J., Yap, Narvasa, Melencio-Herrera, Gutierrez,
Jr., Cruz, Paras, Gancayco, Padilla, Bidin, Sarmiento, and Cortes, JJ., concur.

Fernan and Feliciano,
JJ., on leave.

^[1]
Rollo (AM No. 2656), pp. 15-16.

^[2]
Ibid., pp. 1-2.

^[3]
Rollo (AM No. R-97-RTJ), Vol. II, p. 16.

^[4]
Ibid., pp. 18-20.

^[5]
Id., Vol. I, p. 43.

^[6]
Rollo (AM No. 2656), pp. 34-35.

^[7]
Ibid., pp. 154-155.

^[8]
Rollo (AM No. R-97-RTJ), Vol. I, pp. 1-3.

^[9]
Rollo (AM No. 2656), pp. 3-5.

^[10]
Ibid., p. 103.

^[11]
Id., pp. 103-104.

^[12]
TSN, June 19, 1986, pp. 9-16.

^[13]
TSN, Jan. 8, 1986, pp. 16-17.

^[14]
TSN, July 24, 1986, pp. 17-18.

^[15]
Ibid., pp. 12,14.

^[16]
Id., pp. 14-15.

^[17]
Id., p. 14.

^[18]
Exh. “J-3” (AM No. 2656).

^[19]
TSN, July 17, 1986, p. 26.

^[20]
Ibid., p. 36.

^[21]
Id., pp. 24, 41.

^[22]
Id.; pp. 34-35.

^[23]
Id., p. 36.

^[24]
Rollo (AM No. 2656), pp. 6-7.

^[25]
TSN, July 28, 1986, pp. 5-6.

^[26]
TSN, Dec. 11, 1985, pp. 16-17.

^[27]
Ibid., p. 18.

^[28]
Id., pp. 21-26, 29-30.

^[29]
TSN, Dec. 18, 1985, pp. 7, 20-21.

^[30]
Id., pp. 7, 10.