ATTY. JOSE S. SANTOS, COMPLAINANT, VS. ATTY. CIPRIANO A. TAN, RESPONDENT.

Santos versus Tan

The Case

This is a disbarment proceeding. Atty. Jose S. Santos, then Acting Director of the Bureau of Agrarian Legal Assistance under the Ministry of Agrarian Reform, filed a complaint against Atty. Cipriano A. Tan, a Trial Attorney in the same ministry, charging him with gross misconduct — specifically immorality, falsification, and bigamy. The case matters because it is the Supreme Court's own statement of how gross immorality is measured as a ground for disbarment, and because it holds that a lawyer's moral character is a continuing requirement of the privilege to practice, independent of any criminal conviction.

Procedural History

The complainant instituted the disbarment proceedings before the Supreme Court in November 1984. The Court required the respondent to answer, and he filed his answer in February 1985, raising a prejudicial question and a counter-complaint against the complainant. In March 1985 the Court referred the complaint to the Solicitor General for investigation, report, and recommendation. The Solicitor General conducted several protracted hearings and submitted his Report and Recommendation in February 1990, finding a ground for disbarment and recommending one year of suspension. Acting on the respondent's counter-complaint, the Court directed a supplemental report, which the Solicitor General submitted in November 1990, recommending dismissal of the counter-complaint as unsubstantiated. The case was thus an original administrative action resolved by the Supreme Court en banc.

Facts

The respondent, Atty. Cipriano A. Tan, was employed as Trial Attorney IV in the Judicial Cases Division of the Ministry of Agrarian Reform. While there, he maintained an amorous relationship with a married clerk directly under him, Norma O. Pihid, and on April 27, 1981, he married her before the Municipal Mayor of Meycauayan, Bulacan — purportedly to cover up their illicit relations. The complainant alleged that the respondent falsified the marriage contract by misrepresenting himself as single, deceiving the mayor into solemnizing the marriage. Yet in the information sheet he filed before his employment, the respondent had clearly stated that he was married to Emilia Benito Tan, with whom he had eight children.

Records of the Local Civil Registrar showed that the respondent had contracted marriage with Emilia A. Benito on January 6, 1941, and that this marriage was still valid and binding when he entered the second marriage in April 1981. The second wife gave birth to a child by the respondent in November 1981, as shown by a birth certificate naming the child Noel Olea Tan.

In his answer, the respondent denied the second marriage and the child, though he admitted being married to Emilia Benito. He argued that bigamy and falsification were the proper subjects of a pending criminal case and raised a prejudicial question; that the immorality charge had already been dismissed by the Minister of Agrarian Reform in an order of October 1982; and that the complainant was motivated by resentment. He also filed a counter-complaint charging the complainant with acts unbecoming a lawyer.

Issues

• Whether or not the respondent is guilty of gross immoral conduct warranting disciplinary action as a member of the Bar.
• Whether or not the pendency of the criminal case for bigamy, and the earlier dismissal of the immorality charge by the Minister, bar or preclude the disbarment proceedings.
• Whether or not the complainant's alleged improper motives affect the respondent's liability.
• Whether or not the respondent's counter-complaint against the complainant is substantiated.

Applicable Provisions

Rule 1.01 of Canon I of the Code of Professional Responsibility provides:

A lawyer shall not engage in unlawful, dishonest, immoral or deceitful conduct.

This is the rule the Court applies: the respondent's second marriage while his first subsisted, and his fathering a child by the second woman, fall within the immoral conduct the Canon forbids.

Ruling

On the first issue, the Court agreed with the Solicitor General that the respondent was guilty of immoral conduct. The respondent failed to controvert and refute the charges. His defense of alibi — that he was attending a government case at the Court of First Instance of Caloocan City while Norma Olea was at the Court of Appeals on official business — was riddled with doubt: the daily time records showed both entries on the line covering April 26, 1981, the penmanship of the entries for April 27 was the same, both time-ins were 8:01 a.m., and both were out of the office, making it highly probable they were together and could easily have proceeded to Meycauayan. He never specified the government case he claimed to be attending. He made no categorical denial that Noel Olea Tan was his son, attacking only the authenticity of the birth certificate, and no categorical denial of his amorous relationship with Norma Olea.

On the second issue, the Court held that the circumstances put the respondent's moral character in doubt despite the non-conviction of the criminal case for bigamy. The reputation of a lawyer must be such that he be of good moral character during the continuance of his practice and the exercise of the privilege. On the third issue, the Court held that even granting the complainant was not well-motivated, this does not exculpate the respondent from liability for his grossly immoral conduct. On the fourth issue, the Court agreed with the Solicitor General that the charges against the complainant were all unsubstantiated, and that the respondent's charges were merely in defense of the charges against him.

Doctrine

For immorality to be a ground for disbarment, it must be gross — so corrupt and false as to constitute a criminal act, or so unprincipled or disgraceful as to be reprehensible to a high degree. A lawyer must be of good moral character during the continuance of his practice and the exercise of the privilege; hence, a criminal conviction is not a condition sine qua non — not a prerequisite — to disciplinary liability for immorality. Under Rule 1.01 of Canon I of the Code of Professional Responsibility, a lawyer shall not engage in unlawful, dishonest, immoral or deceitful conduct. Finally, the improper motive of a complainant does not exculpate a lawyer from liability arising from his own grossly immoral conduct.

Disposition

The Court found Atty. Cipriano A. Tan guilty of immoral conduct in disregard of the Code of Professional Responsibility and suspended him from the active practice of law for one year, and dismissed the counter-complaint against Atty. Jose S. Santos for lack of merit.

Remember This

Memorize the standard: immorality is a ground for disbarment only when it is gross — so corrupt and false as to constitute a criminal act, or so unprincipled or disgraceful as to be reprehensible to a high degree. Examiners use this case to test whether a lawyer may be disciplined for immorality despite the absence of a criminal conviction, and whether a complainant's bad motive excuses the lawyer's misconduct.