OCA CIRCULAR NO. 11-2004, January 28, 2004

For the information and guidance of all concerned, quoted
hereunder is the Resolution of Supreme Court En Bane dated March 11,2003
, to wit:

“On January 3, 2002 , Ruby Mae Barnachea filed a verified
complaint for breach of lawyer-client relations against respondent Atty.
Edwin T. Quiocho.

It appears that respondent had not been in the private practice
of the law for quite some time. However, in September 2001, he decided
to revive his legal practice with some associates. Complainant engaged
the legal services of respondent for the latter to cause the transfer
under her name of the title over a property covered by Transfer
Certificate of Title No. 334411 previously owned by her sister, Lutgarda
Amor D. Barnachea The latter sold said property to complainant under an
unnotarized deed of absolute sale. Complainant drew and issued
BPI Family Bank Check No. 0052304 in the amount of PI 1,280.00 and BPI
Family Bank Check No. 0052305 in the amount of P30,000.00 s both dated
September 5, 2001 , or the total amount of P41,280.00 for the expenses
for said transfer and in payment for respondent’s legal services.
Respondent enchased the checks.

However, despite the lapse of almost two months, respondent
foiled to secure title over the property in favor of complainant The
latter demanded that respondent refund to her the amount of P41,280.00
and return the documents which she earlier entrusted to him. However,
respondent failed to comply with said demands. On November 1, 2001,
complainant received a letter from respondent informing her that he had
failed to cause the transfer of the property under her name and that he
was returning the documents and title she had entrusted to him and
refunding to her the amount of P41,280.00 through his personal check No.
DIL 0317787. Said check was drawn against his account with the Back of
Commerce (Diliman PrancK) in the amount of P41,280.00 and was postdated
December 1, 2001 . Respondent told complainant that he needed more time
to fund the check. However, respondent failed to fund the check despite
the demands of complainant.

In his Answer to the complaint, respondent denied that complainant contracted his legal services. Although respondent admitted
having received the two checks from complainant, he claimed th&t
said checks were intended to cover actual and incidental expenses for
transportation, communication, representation, necessary services, taxes
and fees for the cancellation and transfer of ~CT No. 334411 under the
name of complainant and not for legal services. He asserted that he
acted in good faith as shown by the fact of his return of complainant’s
documents with an explanatory letter and his issuance of a personal
check for P41,280.00 dated December 1, 2001, He insisted that he would
not compromise for such meager amount his personal standing as well as
his membership in the legal profession. His failure to transfer the
title of the property under the name of the complainant was
caused by his difficulty in making good the claimed amount, compounded
by his affliction with diabetes and the consequent loss of sight of his
right eye.

Respondent further alleged that he was a licensed real estate
and insurance broker and had been a freelance business management
consultant. At the same time he engaged in real estate brokering,
pre-need products marketing for Prudential Life, and life insurance
underwriting for Insular Life. In 1999, he gave up the practice of his
profession as a lawyer and subsequently managed to put up : a business
center with fellow insurance underwriters for their common insurance
underwriting practice. He further claimed that sometime in August, 2001,
an insurance client introduced complainant as an insurance prospect to
him. In the course of their dealing, complainant intimated to
respondent her willingness to consider respondent’s insurance proposal
provided the latter would help her facilitate the cancellation and
eventual transfer to her name the property covered by TCT No. 334411 in
the name of complainant’s sister, Lutgarda Amor D. Barnachea Respondent
agreed to help complainant in the transfer of the title to her name,
with the condition that no diligent study or verification of
complainant’s documents, nor preparation of any additional document or
any application or petition whatsoever, will be made by respondent He
explained to complainant that his task was merely to go through the
regular process of presenting the available documents, paying the taxes
and fees, and following up the processing for the cancellation and
issuance of the certificate of title. In other words, respondent offered
to complainant services which a non-lawyer familiar with the procedure
and the related offices can perform and provide to the complainant with
respect to the transfer of the title of the property in her name.

Respondent asserted that in the latter part of September 2001,
he discovered and became aware for the first time that the original copy
of TCT No. 334411 with the Register of Deeds of Quezon City was
destroyed in a fire in Quezon City Hall several years earlier and that
complainant’s copy of the title needed to be reconstituted before it can
be cancelled and transferred. At about the same time, the working
relations of „ respondent in the business center with his non-lawyer
associates had become difficult and strained, impelling him to sever his
business relations with them and cease from to going to the business
center. Consequently, telephone communications between respondent and
complainant at the business center was cut. Communications became much
more limited when, apart from the fact that respondent did not have a
landline at his residence, respondent’s mobile phone was stolen sometime
in October 2001.

The Integrated Bar of the Philippines (IBP) designated Atty.
Dennis.B. Funa as Commissioner to conduct a formal investigation of the
complaint. Despite several settings, respondent failed to appear and
adduce evidence.

On April 26, 2002 , Investigating Commissioner Dennis B. Funa submitted his report and recommendation stating in part that:

1. Respondent is not able to meet his financial obligations due
   to financial difficulties, and that respondent is in good faith in his
   failure to meet this obligation.

2. It is recommended that respondent be CLIENT within ninety (90)
   days from receipt of this Decision. The principal amount being
   P41,280.00. Failure to comply with the Order shall be considered as
   proof of evident bad faith, and shall be considered in the continuing
   evaluation of the case in view of the continued failure to repay his
   client.

3. Respondent should also be given a WARNING that a repetition shall be dealt with more severely. ^[1]

The Investigating Commissioner gave credence to the claim of
complainant that she engaged the legal services of respondent and paid
him for his services and that respondent failed in his undertaking and
refund the amount of P41,280.00 to complainant despite her demands and
that respondent appeared to be evading the complainant

On October 19,2002 , the IBP Board of Governors passed Resolution
No. XV-2002-550 adopting and approving the Investigating Commissioner 5 s
recommendation with the additional sanction of reprimand for respondent:

RESOLVED to ADOPT and APPROVE, as it is hereby ADOPTED and APPROVED, the Report and Recommendation of the Investigating Commissioner of the above-entitled case, herein made part of this Resolution/Decision as Annex “A”; and, finding the recommendation fully supported by the evidence on record and the applicable laws and rules, with modification. Respondent
is hereby reprimanded and ordered to return the Forty One Thousand Two
Hundred Eighty (P41,280.00) Pesos to complainant within ninety (90) days
from receipt of notice.^[2]

While the Court agrees with the Board of Governors that respondent
should be meted a disciplinary sanction, it finds that the penalty of
reprimand recommended by the Board of Governors is noi commensurate to
the gravity of the wrong committed by respondent. As found by the
Investigating Commissioner, the complainant engaged the legal services
of the respondent. As admitted in his letter to the complainant,
respondent had just resumed his private practice of law two months
before complainant contracted his services for the notarization of the
Deed of Absolute Sale, the registration thereof with the Register of
Deeds and the transfer of the title over the property to the
complainant:

NOVEMBER 1,2002

DEAR RUBY,

I AM SORRY I AM RETURNING YOUR DOCUMENTS WITHOUT CHANGES.

I HAD A SERIES OF MONEY PROBLEMS RIGHT AFTER YOU GAVE ME THE TWO CHECKS AND COMING WITH THE AMOUNTS WITH PERSONAL FUNDS.

I WAS REVIVING MY LEGAL PRACTICE ONLY FOR TWO MONTHS WHICH WE
MET AND HAD JUST SET UP THE OFFICE WITH TWO ASSOCIATES WHICH A FEW WEEKS
LATER WE HAD DISAGREEMENTS AND DECIDED TO DISBAND. I WILL HAVE TO
REFURBISH MY OFFICE. I AM ISSUING MY PERSONAL CHECK TO GUARANTEE THE
AMOUNT I TOOK. I NEED A LITTLE MORE TIME TO COVER THE AMOUNT. THANKS FOR
YOUR UNDERSTANDING.

(SGD.) EDWIN.[3]

Respondent’s claim that complainant did not retain his legal
services flies in the face of his letter to complainant. Even if it were
true that no attorney-client relationship existed between them, case
law has it that an attorney may be removed or otherwise disciplined not
only for malpractice and dishonesty in the profession but also for gross
misconduct not connected with his professional duties, making him unfit
for the office and unworthy of the privileges which his license and the
law confer upon him.^[4]

In this case, respondent failed to comply with his undertaking
for almost two months. Worse, despite demands of complainant, he failed
to refund the amount of P41,280.00 and to return to complainant the deed
of absolute sale and title over the property. Respondent’s claim that
complainant could not contact him because he did not have any landline
at his residence and that his mobile phone was stolen in October 2001,,
is hard to believe. He failed to adduce a morsel of evidence to prove
that his telephone at the business center was cut or that his mobile
phone had been stolen. Even then, respondent could have easily contacted
the complainant at her residence or could have written her a letter
informing her that the original copy of TCT No. 324411 in the custody of
the Register of Deeds was burned when the Quezon City Hall was gutted
by fire and that there was a need for the reconstitution of said title.
Neither did respondent adduce evidence that he was a life insurance
underwriter for Insular Life or that he had been sick with diabetes and
had lost his sight in his right eye. Respondent simply refused to adduce
evidence to prove his allegations in his Answer to the complaint.

The Court is led to believe that respondent’s failure to cause
the transfer of the title of the property under the name of the
complainant was due to a financial problem that beset him shortly after
he received the checks from complainant. It can easily be inferred from
respondent’s letter that he used complainant’s money to alleviate if not
solve his financial woes. What compounded respondent’s unethical
conduct was his drawing of a personal check and delivering the same to
-complainant .without sufficient funds in his bank account to cover the
check , Even as he promised to fund his account with the drawee bank,
respondent failed to do so when the check become due.

A lawyer is obliged to hold in trust money or property of his
client that may come to his possession. He is a trustee to said funds
and property.^[5] He s to keep
the funds of his client separate and apart from his own and those of
others kept by him. Money entrusted to a lawyer for a specific purpose
such as for the registration of a deed with the Register of Deeds and
for expenses and fees for the transfer of title over real property under
the name of his client if not utilized, must be returned immediately to
his client upon demand therefor. The lawyer’s failure to return the
money of his client upon demand gave rise to a presumption that he has
misappropriated said money in violation: of the trust reposed on.him.^[6]
The conversion by a lawyer funds entrusted to him by his client is a
gross violation of professional ethics and a betrayal of public
confidence in the legal profession.^[7]

In this case, respondent intransigeantly refused to return to
the complainant the amount of P41,280.00 which he received for the
expenses for the transfer to her of the title of the property and for
his professional fees. His dishonest conduct was compounded by his
interjection of flimsy excuses for his obstinate refusal to refund the
amount to complainant.

The relation of attorney and client is highly fiduciary in
nature and is of a very delicate, exacting and confidential character. 8
A lawyer is duty-bound to observe candor, fairness and loyalty in all
his dealings and transactions with his clients. 9 The profession,
therefore, demands of an attorney an absolute abdication of every
personal advantage conflicting in any way, directly or indirectly, with
the interest of his client. In-this case, respondent miserably failed to
measure up to the exacting standard expected of him.

IN LIGHT OF ALL THE FOREGOING, Respondent
Atty. Edwin T. Quiocho is found guilty of violation of Canons 15 and 16
of the Code of Professional Responsibility. He is SUSPENDED from the practice of law for One (1) Year with a stern warning that a repetition of the same or similar acts shall be dealt with more severely. He is DIRECTED to restitute to the complainant the full amount of P41,280.00 within ten (10) days from notice hereof Respondent is further DIRECTED to
submit to the Court proof of payment of said amount within ten (10)
days from said payment If Respondent fails to restitute the said amount
within the aforesaid period, he shall be meted an additional suspension
of three (3) months for every month or fraction thereof of delay until
he shall have^ paid the said amount in full In case a subsidiary penalty
of suspension for his failure to restitute the said amount shall be
necessary, respondent shall serve successively the penalty of his one
year suspension and the subsidiary penalty. This is without, prejudice
to the right of the complainant to institute the appropriate action for
the collection of said amount

SO ORDERED”

Per resolution of the Second Division of this Court dated July 14,
2003 , copy of the said resolution dated March 11, 2003 is deemed
served on Atty. Quiocho by substituted service pursuant to Sec. 8, Rule
13 of the 1997 Rules of Civil Procedure, as amended.

__28__January 2004.

^[1] Rollo.pp. 31.

^[2] Id. at 26.

 ^[3] Id. at 6.

 ^[4] Constantino vs. Saludares, 228 SCRA233 (1993).

 ^[5] Canon 16, CODE OF PROFESSIONAL RESPONSIBILITY.

 ^[6]la Re: David, 84 Phil. 627; Capulcng vs. AUno, 22 SCRA 491 (1968).

 ^[7] Nabor vs. Betertna, 360 SCR A 6(2001).

 ^[8] Cannon 15, CODE OF PROFESSIONAL RESPONSIBILITY

 ^[9] Id.