SHIRLEY K. TIWAKEN, COMPLAINANT, VS. ATTY. JURGENS SJ. MILAN, CLERK OF COURT V, REGIONAL TRIAL COURT, LA TRINIDAD, BENGUET, RESPONDENT.

Tiwaken versus Milan

The Case

This is an administrative case for dismissal from service and disbarment filed by Shirley Tiwaken against Atty. Jurgens SJ. Milan, Clerk of Court V of the Regional Trial Court of La Trinidad, Benguet. Tiwaken alleges that the respondent, holding himself out as a government lawyer and a town mate who treated her as a relative, took the original owner's copies of three certificates of title from her for supposed safekeeping, demanded and received money from her on several occasions, and later released those titles to the opposing party without any lawful order. The case matters because it is a clean illustration of how the Supreme Court treats a court employee and lawyer who uses his office for personal gain, and of how the Code of Professional Responsibility and Accountability applies to acts committed before it took effect.

Procedural History

The affidavit-complaint was initially filed before Executive Judge Jennifer Humiding of the Regional Trial Court of La Trinidad, Benguet, who forwarded it to the Office of the Court Administrator. The Office of the Court Administrator directed the respondent to submit his comment, and when he ignored the directive, it reiterated the same through a tracer. The Office of the Court Administrator then submitted a report recommending that the respondent be directed, for the last time, to submit his comment and to show cause why he should not be held administratively liable for his failure to comply. The Supreme Court adopted that recommendation, and the respondent finally filed his comment.

The Court then referred the matter to Executive Judge Jennifer Humiding for investigation, report, and recommendation. Marietta Brawner-Cualing was later designated as the new executive judge in Benguet, and the case was eventually re-docketed under the Judicial Integrity Board. After a thorough investigation, Executive Judge Brawner-Cualing submitted a report recommending dismissal from service, forfeiture of benefits, and disqualification from reinstatement or appointment to any public office. The case then reached the Supreme Court as an administrative matter, decided by the Court en banc.

Facts

Tiwaken was the attorney-in-fact of Helen Fossar Stewart, the plaintiff in a civil case for collection of a sum of money before Branch 10 of the Regional Trial Court of La Trinidad, Benguet, which was decided in the plaintiff's favor. She came to know the respondent because they hail from the same town, and he considered her a relative. In June 2015, the respondent called her several times, telling her that the property covered by Transfer Certificate of Title Number 016-2011003045 was involved in another case before the Municipal Trial Court of La Trinidad, Benguet, and convincing her to give him the original title for safekeeping. On June 25, 2015, she turned over the originals of three titles, and immediately after acknowledging receipt, the respondent demanded and received ten thousand pesos from her for his services in safekeeping the titles.

On three occasions in July and August 2015, the respondent instructed her to meet him at a restaurant, where he demanded money so that he could monitor her case before Branch 10 and ensure a favorable decision. She gave him ten thousand pesos each time, or thirty thousand pesos in total. In October 2015, he again demanded and received five thousand pesos for allegedly following up the case. In December 2015, he asked her to prepare money for the sheriff because the decision was already finished, but when she verified with the sheriff, she was told that no decision had been issued, so she did not comply.

In January 2016, Tiwaken learned from the Registry of Deeds of Benguet that a deed of sale involving the property covered by one of the titles she had entrusted to the respondent had been registered. When she confronted him, he admitted that he released the original title because he was given twenty thousand pesos. The title was eventually cancelled and a new one issued in the name of a vendee. Later, among the records of a related case before the Municipal Trial Court, she found an acknowledgment receipt signed by the respondent and Julia Fianza showing that as early as June 30, 2015, he had already released the three titles, even as he continued to demand money from her for safekeeping them. In his comment, the respondent claimed that he had received the titles in his capacity as Acting Ex-Officio Provincial Sheriff to enforce a writ of execution, and that he turned them over to Julia Fianza and her brother on June 30, 2015.

Issues

• Whether or not the Code of Professional Responsibility and Accountability applies to an administrative case for acts committed before its effectivity.
• Whether or not the respondent violated Republic Act Number 6713 and the Code of Professional Responsibility and Accountability.
• Whether or not the respondent's actuations warrant his dismissal from service and disbarment from the practice of law.

Applicable Provisions

The transitory provision of the Code of Professional Responsibility and Accountability provides:

Section 1. Transitory provision. — The CPRA shall be applied to all pending and future cases, except to the extent that in the opinion of the Supreme Court, its retroactive application would not be feasible or work injustice, in which case the procedure under which the cases were filed shall govern.

This provision is the basis for applying the new Code to the respondent's acts, which were committed before the Code took effect on May 30, 2023.

Section 4 of Republic Act Number 6713 provides:

Section 4. Norms of Conduct of Public Officials and Employees. — (A) Every public official and employee shall observe the following as standards of personal conduct in the discharge and execution of official duties: (a) Commitment to public interest. — Public officials and employees shall always uphold the public interest over and above personal interest. All government resources and powers of their respective offices must be employed and used efficiently, effectively, honestly and economically, particularly to avoid wastage in public funds and revenues. (b) Professionalism. — Public officials and employees shall perform and discharge their duties with the highest degree of excellence, professionalism, intelligence and skill. They shall enter public service with utmost devotion and dedication to duty. They shall endeavor to discourage wrong perceptions of their roles as dispensers or peddlers of undue patronage. (c) Justness and sincerity. — Public officials and employees shall remain true to the people at all times. They must act with justness and sincerity and shall not discriminate against anyone, especially the poor and the underprivileged. They shall at all times respect the rights of others, and shall refrain from doing acts contrary to law, good morals, good customs, public policy, public order, public safety and public interest. They shall not dispense or extend undue favors on account of their office to their relatives whether by consanguinity or affinity except with respect to appointments of such relatives to positions considered strictly confidential or as members of their personal staff whose terms are coterminous with theirs.

These norms are the standards of conduct the respondent is charged with violating when he placed his personal interest above the public interest and extended undue favors to a party litigant.

Section 4 also provides:

(e) Responsiveness to the public. — Public officials and employees shall extend prompt, courteous, and adequate service to the public. Unless otherwise provided by law or when required by the public interest, public officials and employees shall provide information of their policies and procedures in clear and understandable language, ensure openness of information, public consultations and hearings whenever appropriate, encourage suggestions, simplify and systematize policy, rules and procedures, avoid red tape and develop an understanding and appreciation of the socioeconomic conditions prevailing in the country, especially in the depressed rural and urban areas.

This norm is violated when a public officer uses his position to extract money from a member of the public instead of serving her promptly and honestly.

Section 7 of Republic Act Number 6713 provides:

Section 7. Prohibited Acts and Transactions. — In addition to acts and omissions of public officials and employees now prescribed in the Constitution and existing laws, the following shall constitute prohibited acts and transactions of any public official and employee and are hereby declared to be unlawful: (a) Financial and material interest. — Public officials and employees shall not, directly or indirectly, have any financial or material interest in any transaction requiring the approval of their office.

This provision is the statutory anchor for treating the respondent's demands for money as unlawful acts and transactions.

Ruling

On the first issue, the Court held that the Code of Professional Responsibility and Accountability applies to this administrative case. Although the acts imputed to the respondent were committed before the Code took effect, its transitory provision expressly provides for retroactive application to all pending and future cases, unless retroactive application would not be feasible or would work injustice. The Court found no such infeasibility or injustice here, and so applied the new Code squarely.

On the second issue, the Court found that the respondent violated Republic Act Number 6713 and the provisions of the Code of Professional Responsibility and Accountability. The investigating executive judge had found that his demands for and receipt of money from Tiwaken constituted bribery, a serious charge; that his acceptance and release of the titles without any lawful order constituted gross misconduct, a serious charge; that his release of the titles to Julia Fianza and her brother, whose lawyer knew she was in hiding from several warrants of arrest, compounded the misconduct; that his late submission of his comment violated a Supreme Court directive, a less serious charge; and that his fraternizing with the counsel of the opposing party amounted to a light charge.

On the third issue, the Court held that the severity of the respondent's violations warranted his dismissal from service and the imposition of the ultimate penalty of disbarment. The Court weighed the fact that he had been in government service for more than thirty years and that this was his first administrative case, but concluded that these circumstances could not mitigate violations of this gravity.

Doctrine

First, the Code of Professional Responsibility and Accountability applies to all pending and future cases, including those involving acts committed before its effectivity, unless the Supreme Court finds that retroactive application would not be feasible or would work injustice.

Second, a public official or employee must at all times uphold the public interest over and above personal interest, perform his duties with professionalism, act with justness and sincerity, and extend prompt, courteous, and adequate service to the public, as required by Section 4 of Republic Act Number 6713.

Third, a public official or employee shall not, directly or indirectly, have any financial or material interest in any transaction requiring the approval of his office, as prohibited by Section 7 of Republic Act Number 6713.

Fourth, a court employee who demands and receives money from a litigant in exchange for supposed favors, and who releases property entrusted to him to the opposing party without lawful authority, commits bribery and gross misconduct, which are serious charges punishable by dismissal from service, forfeiture of benefits, and disqualification from reinstatement or appointment to any public office, as well as by disbarment.

Disposition

The Court found the respondent guilty of the serious charges and ordered his dismissal from service, the forfeiture of his benefits, his disqualification from reinstatement or appointment to any public office, and his disbarment from the practice of law.

Remember This

The single line worth memorizing is that the Code of Professional Responsibility and Accountability applies retroactively to pending and future cases, and that a court employee who takes money from a litigant and releases entrusted titles to the opposing party is guilty of bribery and gross misconduct warranting dismissal and disbarment. Examiners like to use this case to test the retroactive application of the Code of Professional Responsibility and Accountability and the administrative liability of court personnel under Republic Act Number 6713.