ANNABELLE R. GUTIERREZ, COMPLAINANT, VS. HON. RODOLFO G. PALATTAO, RESPONDENT.

Gutierrez versus Palattao

The Case

This is an administrative complaint filed directly with the Supreme Court by Annabelle R. Gutierrez against Judge Rodolfo G. Palattao, the presiding judge of a Regional Trial Court branch in Manila who had convicted her of violating the Bouncing Checks Law and of estafa. Stung by what she believed was a wrongful conviction, she charged the judge with serious misconduct, graft and corruption, knowingly rendering an unjust decision, falsification of a public document, and gross ignorance of the law. The case matters because it draws the line between a reversible error of judgment, which is corrected only by appeal, and a disciplinable offense, which requires gross or patent error attended by malice or bad faith. It also teaches, on the evidentiary side, that an extrajudicial admission alone cannot establish the corpus delicti of a bouncing-check charge.

Procedural History

Five criminal complaints for violation of the Bouncing Checks Law and one complaint for estafa were filed against Gutierrez, and after preliminary investigation the corresponding informations were filed in court and raffled to the sala of the respondent judge. During the trial, Gutierrez filed a demurrer to evidence, which the respondent judge denied. She then went up to the Court of Appeals on a petition for certiorari, questioning that denial. The Court of Appeals dismissed the petition but allowed her to present her evidence. After several postponements, and after she presented no witnesses, the case was submitted for decision. The respondent judge then promulgated a decision convicting her in all six cases. Aggrieved, she filed this administrative complaint directly with the Supreme Court, and the respondent judge submitted his comment and supplemental comment in refutation.

Facts

Gutierrez borrowed 370,000 pesos from Ligaya V. Santos and issued five checks drawn on the United Coconut Planters Bank as guarantee for the loan. Santos deposited the checks in her account with the Philippine National Bank, and when the bank presented them to the drawee bank, all five were dishonored for the reason closed account. Santos made verbal and written demands, and when Gutierrez allegedly refused to pay, Santos filed the criminal complaints that became the six informations raffled to the respondent judge.

On November 15, 1993, while the informations were pending, Santos executed a handwritten letter stating that she was dropping her charges against Gutierrez because the latter had changed the bouncing checks with new ones. On the same day, Gutierrez also executed a handwritten document certifying that she had received all her old checks from Santos in exchange for the new ones she gave, and that Santos had agreed to drop the case. These documents were executed after Gutierrez replaced the five checks subject of the informations. The replacement checks were subsequently honored, except one check dated May 10, 1994 in the amount of 50,000 pesos, drawn on the same bank, which was dishonored upon presentment for the reason stop payment.

At the trial, the prosecution did not present or formally offer in evidence the five original checks named in the informations. Instead, the evidence consisted of the replacement check, the return deposit slip showing that it was dishonored for stop payment, and the testimony of a bank representative. The respondent judge convicted Gutierrez in the five bouncing-check cases and in the estafa case, treating her handwritten statement as an admission that she had issued the bouncing checks and had merely replaced them. He imposed, among others, a sentence of twelve years of prision mayor as minimum to twenty years of reclusion temporal as maximum for estafa, and ordered the cancellation of her bail bond.

Issues

• Whether or not the respondent judge may be held administratively liable for serious misconduct, graft and corruption, knowingly rendering an unjust decision, falsification of a public document, and gross ignorance of the law on the basis of the grounds raised by the complainant.
• Whether or not the respondent judge erred in convicting the complainant on the basis of her handwritten statement alone, without the original checks having been offered in evidence.
• Whether or not such error, if any, amounts to gross ignorance of the law or knowingly rendering an unjust decision warranting administrative sanction.

Applicable Provisions

Article 315 of the Revised Penal Code, paragraph 2, subparagraph d, under which the estafa information was filed, provides:

Swindling is committed by any person who shall defraud another by means of any of the following false pretenses or fraudulent acts executed prior to or simultaneously with the commission of the fraud: by postdating a check, or issuing a check in payment of an obligation when the offender therein were not sufficient to cover the amount of the check, or by falsely pretending to possess any power, influence, qualifications, property, credit, agency, business or imaginary transactions, or by means of other similar deceits.

This is the offense for which the complainant was convicted, and the Court examined whether the evidence offered by the prosecution could sustain a conviction under it.

The Bouncing Checks Law, Batas Pambansa Blg. 22, is the other statute involved, and the Court stressed that its gravamen is the act of knowingly issuing a check with insufficient funds, which is why the checks themselves must be offered in evidence.

Ruling

On the first issue, the Court held that, except for one point, the charges had been sufficiently and satisfactorily refuted by the respondent judge. On the jurisdictional challenge, the law expanding the jurisdiction of the Metropolitan Trial Courts took effect only after the informations had already been filed, and it did not provide for retroactive application to pending criminal cases. On the alleged defect in the informations, the place and time of the commission of the offenses were sufficiently alleged, and the proper remedy was a timely motion to quash, not a collateral attack after judgment. On the alleged antedating and precipitate promulgation, the records showed that the promulgation had been reset several times, first because of the complainant's own petition before the Court of Appeals and later because of a restraining order, and that the respondent judge simply crossed out the previous date and superimposed the actual date of promulgation. On the cancellation of bail, the respondent judge was merely implementing the circular requiring commitment once the penalty imposed exceeds six years.

On the second issue, however, the Court disagreed with the respondent judge. It held that he misconstrued and misapplied the rule on admission in criminal cases. Quoting its earlier ruling, the Court said:

By its very nature, an admission is the mere acknowledgement of a fact or of circumstances from which guilt may be inferred, tending to incriminate the speaker, but not sufficient of itself to establish his guilt.

The Court explained that the complainant's letter, by itself, did not prove beyond reasonable doubt her culpability under the Bouncing Checks Law and Article 315 of the Revised Penal Code. To establish her guilt, it was indispensable that the checks she issued, and for which she was subsequently charged, be offered in evidence, because the gravamen of the offense is the act of knowingly issuing a check with insufficient funds. It was therefore error to convict her on the basis of her letter alone.

On the third issue, the Court nevertheless held that this incorrect interpretation of a rule on evidence was not sufficient to constitute gross ignorance of the law or knowingly rendering an unjust decision. At most, it was an error of judgment, for which a judge cannot, as a general rule, be held administratively liable. The Court reiterated that a judge may not be held administratively accountable for every erroneous order or decision he renders, and that the error must be gross or patent, malicious, deliberate, or in evident bad faith. It stressed that mere errors in the appreciation of evidence, unless so gross and patent as to produce an inference of ignorance or bad faith, are irrelevant in an administrative proceeding against a judge. Finding the record bereft of any evidence that the respondent judge's actuations were tainted with malice and bad faith, the Court held that the administrative charges must fail.

Doctrine

A judge may not be held administratively liable for every erroneous order or decision he renders. The error must be gross or patent, malicious, deliberate, or in evident bad faith; good faith and the absence of malice, corrupt motives, or improper consideration are sufficient defenses to a charge of ignorance of the law. Mere errors in the appreciation of evidence are irrelevant in an administrative proceeding unless so gross and patent as to produce an inference of ignorance or bad faith, or of a knowing rendition of an unjust decision.

An admission in a criminal case is the mere acknowledgment of a fact or circumstance from which guilt may be inferred, tending to incriminate the speaker, but not sufficient of itself to establish guilt. It cannot by itself prove beyond reasonable doubt the commission of the crime charged.

In a prosecution for violation of the Bouncing Checks Law, the gravamen of the offense is the act of knowingly issuing a check with insufficient funds. The checks themselves must therefore be offered in evidence; a conviction cannot rest on the accused's written statement alone.

Disposition

The administrative complaint against Judge Rodolfo G. Palattao was dismissed for lack of merit, and the respondent judge was exonerated of all the charges.

Remember This

Memorize the line that an admission in a criminal case is insufficient to prove beyond reasonable doubt the commission of the crime charged, and that a judge is administratively liable only for gross or patent error attended by malice or bad faith. Examiners use this case to test the distinction between an error of judgment and a disciplinable offense, and to test the rule that the checks themselves must be offered in evidence in a Bouncing Checks Law prosecution.