IN RE ATTY. ARTURO N. ARAFILES.

This administrative case came about as a consequence of a letter
addressed to the President of the Philippines
by one Melchora Pulan, of Gingoog City,
asking his as­sistance in behalf of her common-law husband, Jao
Guan Suy, a Chinese national, in connection with the
ques­tion of his desire to acquire Filipino citizenship.  The letter dated August 29, 1969 made
reference to an enclosed letter of respondent Attorney A.N. Arafiles
to “Mr. and Mrs. Jao Guan Suy,”
dated August 20, 1969, the pertinent portion of which read as follows:

“I have started working on your papers and have already gone
to the various offices in Manila.  Everything is going fine except that in the
office of the Bureau of Immigration.  Too
much red tape and it will take a short while for me to get all the required
documents.  I have approached the people at
the Bureau of Immigration and they are demanding so much money from me before
your papers are released.  The amount you
gave me was insufficient to satisfy the government people.  They want me to give them something
substantial, and I wonder if you would be will­ing to give me some more.  As you know in the government, nothing works
without a “LAGAY”.  Perhaps, if
you could give me about P1,000.00, all would be
finished soon.  However, if you do not
have that much, about P800.00 will do in the meantime.  I promise you that results will be fast.  You can send it to me by cer­tified check or
by telegraphic transfer at the above-mentioned address.

Everything is being done under the sun to expedite your papers, and
I hope that you will send me the necessary cash to keep the ball rolling.”

The matter was indorsed by the Acting Assistant Executive
Secretary to the Bureau of Immigration, requesting appropriate action, and on March 23, 1970, Attorney A.B.
Faustino of the said Bureau formally investigated the respondent.  In his sworn statement given at that
investigation the respondent stated that he had not filed any application with
the Bureau of Immigration relative to the desire of Jao
Guan Suy to become a Filipino citizens; that he had
not even taken any steps to secure his client’s certificate of arrival in the
Philippines; that he had not had any transaction with the said Bureau
concerning the case; and that in fact he had gone there only once before, and
that was in 1962 regarding another matter.  Asked about the statement in his letter of
August 20, 1969, to “Mr. and Mrs. Jao Guan Suy” to the effect that there was so much red tape in
the Bureau of Immigration and that the people there demanded money from him,
the respondent at first declined to answer on constitutional grounds, but when
the same questions were put to him in a different form he answered that his
statement about the demand for money was untrue and that if he made reference
to it in his letter of August 20, 1969, it was to obtain money from his clients
for legal and miscellaneous expenses.

The respondent was required by this Court to answer the complaint
against him; and under date of September
8, 1970, he wrote a letter to this Court, which reads:

“In answer to the complaint filed against me, all I can say is
that I cannot prove anything that I stated in my letter of Aug. 20, 1969 to Mr. and Mrs. Jao
Guan Suy of Gingoog
City.  I therefore plead guilty to the
charge therein and will meekly accept the punishment which the Honorable
Supreme Court will impose upon me.  I
guess there is no use fighting for a cause which has no basis at all and I
leave it to your hands to exact the penalty on me whatever it might be.

As a man who is about to receive the Honorable Supreme Court’s
verdict, I have nothing to request but to hope that the Honorable Justices will
see their way clear into meting justice tempered with under­standing and
leniency on a poor lawyer who openly acknowledges guilt and who promises to
reform, if given another chance.”

From the foregoing it is clear that the respondent, in his letter
to “Mr. and Mrs. Jao Guam Suy,”
deliberately misrepresented to them that he had been working on their case in
the Bureau of Immigration; that be made a false statement when he said that
there was too much red tape in said office and that the people there were
demanding money from him; and that the said statement was an ex­cuse for him to
be able to get the sum of P1,000.00, or even P800.00 in the meantime.  The respondent’s acts constitute professional
misconduct, for which he deserves to be disciplined.

CONSIDERING, however, the respondent’s voluntary admission
of the charges against him and his plea for leniency and promise to reform,
this Court hereby imposes upon him the relatively light penalty of suspension
from the practice of law for a period of three months from notice of this decision.

Let copies hereof be furnished to the Offices of the Secretary of
Justice and of the Executive Secretary for their information.

Reyes, J.B.L., Acting C.J., Dizon, Zaldivar, Ruiz Castro, Fernando, Teehankee,
Barredo, Villamor, and Makasiar, JJ., concur.