REPORT ON THE AUDIT AND INVENTORY OF CASES IN THE REGIONAL TRIAL COURT, BRANCH 11, BALAYAN, BATANGAS.

This administrative matter stemmed from a directive of Deputy
Court Administrator Reynaldo L. Suarez of this Court, dated September 27, 1993,
instructing four members of his staff to conduct an audit and inspection of the
records and docket book of Branch 11 of the Regional Trial Court of Balayan,
Batangas due to persistent reports of delay in the disposition of cases pending
therein.

Pursuant thereto, the members of the team all proceeded to
Balayan, Batangas and looked for Judge Ernesto H. Gorospe, the presiding judge
of said branch of the aforestated court. However, they were informed that Judge Gorospe would be arriving a
little late as he was coming all the way from his house in Tarlac where he
celebrated his birthday the previous day. Towards noon, the team was informed that the judge would not be able to
report since, according to his wife who called up, he supposedly “got
sick.”

The team then decided to examine the docket book, but was not
able to do so since the person allegedly in charge thereof, the court
interpreter, was also absent on that day and, apparently, no one among the
other personnel of the court knew where it was kept. The draft of the court’s third quarter report of cases was of no
help either, since the absence of the docket book made it difficult for the
team to inquire into the correctness of the statements appearing in said draft.

The report thereafter submitted by the team contained the
following findings: (1) Branch 11 had a
total caseload of 157 cases as of the audit date, 89 of which were criminal
cases and 68 were civil cases; (2) 13 criminal cases and 16 civil cases had
remained unacted upon for a long time; (3) 6 cases, 3 of which were criminal
cases and the other 3 were civil cases, had already been submitted for decision,
but the records thereof were not available for inspection since the same were
likewise supposedly in the custody of the absent court interpreter; (4) 6
cases, 2 of them criminal, and the other 4, civil, could not be included in the
audit due to the same difficulty in locating their records, despite diligent
efforts to do so; (5) 5 cases, 3 of them criminal, and 2, civil, had already
been submitted for decision but had not been decided as of the audit date; and
(6) an examination of the court calendar covering the period from January to
September, 1993, disclosed that court hearings were not conducted daily.^[1]

Incidentally, the search for the aforementioned missing records
was further hampered by the lack of electric power in the Hall of Justice on
that day, allegedly due to the refusal of the Provincial Government of Batangas
to pay for its electric bills. The
records do not show the reason therefor and how long that situation had
obtained in said branch of the trial court.

In a resolution by the Court En Banc dated
November 25, 1993, Judge Gorospe was given twenty days from receipt thereof
within which to explain (1) his failure to act on the cases aforementioned in
spite of the lapse of a long period of time, (b) the delay in the disposition
of the cases already submitted for decision, and (3) the irregularity of the
trial dates scheduled for the hearing of the cases assigned to him.

By way of compliance with the aforesaid resolution, said judge
filed his explanation, dated January 21, 1993, wherein he manifested that
“he was able to update his cases and (had) acted on the cited cases and he
has decided all cases for decision, and to maintain regular trial dates.”
He does not, however, explain the respective status of the cases enumerated in
the audit report after he “update(d)” and “acted” on them.

He likewise attributed the delay in the disposition of the cases
pending in his sala to several circums­tances, viz.:

1. In January, 1993, he
was confined in the U.S.T. Hospital for ten days due to pneumonia and moderately
advanced tuberculosis. Upon his
discharge therefrom, he was advised to have a complete rest for three months.

2. At the time of his discharge, however, Judge Inocencio
Makalinao, the presiding judge of Branch 10 of the same court, retired, and Presiding
Judge Justo Sultan of Branch 9 was still on detail at the Regional Trial Court of Biñan, Laguna. This prompted him to forego his vacation and report to work. He was then designated acting presiding
judge, first, of Branch 9 and, later, of Branch 10. As Executive Judge of the Regional Trial Court of Balayan,
Batangas, he had to attend to the needs of three regional trial courts and four
municipal trial courts under his administrative supervision. These additional responsibilities which
entail multifarious duties, aside from his own health problems, caused him to
suspend action on the cited cases.

3. It was only when Judge
Franchito Diamante was appointed presiding judge of Branch 10 that he was able
to act on all his pending cases and conduct daily hearings.

In its resolution of
February 8, 1994, the Court referred this administrative matter to the Office
of the Court Administrator for evaluation, report and recommendation; and said
office, through Deputy Court Administrator Reynaldo L. Suarez, submitted its
report dated April 20, 1994, with the corresponding evaluative findings and
recommendations.

Prefatorily, we note that
the records of this administrative matter, coupled with the admissions of Judge
Gorospe, establish the fact that he had indeed been remiss in his duties as a
presiding judge. Even assuming the
veracity of his explanations, an objective evaluation thereof conduces to a
holding that all of them can only mitigate but cannot totally absolve him from
liability.

Canon 3, Rule 3.08 of the
Code of Judicial Conduct provides that “(a) judge should diligently
discharge administrative responsibilities, maintain professional competence in
court management, and facilitate the performance of the administrative
functions of other judges and court personnel.” Judge Gorospe has
not offered a sufficiently plausible explanation for the apparent mismanagement
of his court. That inefficiency is
exemplified by the missing records of some of the cases pending in his sala
and the non-availability of the
docket book when required for inspection owing merely to the absence of the
court interpreter who was the custodian thereof. If that was in truth the cause for non-production of said
documents when required by competent authority on a working day, and no other
member of the staff could do anything about the problem except to feign
ignorance as to the whereabouts thereof, then it speaks very poorly of the
administration and management of said branch. We have held that to achieve a close personal supervision over the
records of the court, it is necessary that a physical inventory thereof be
regularly made for it is only by this procedure that the judge can keep himself abreast of the status of
the pending cases and be informed that everything is in order in his court.^[2]

Corollarily, the good judge even failed to observe the very
explicit mandate in Canon 3, Rule 3.05 of the said Code which requires him to
dispose of the court’s business promptly and decide cases within the period
specified in the Constitution, that is, three months from the filing of the
last pleading, brief or memorandum.^[3] This
requirement of the fundamental
law is designed to prevent delay in the administration of justice, for
obviously justice delayed is justice denied, and delay in the disposition of
cases erodes the faith and confidence of our people in the judiciary,^[4]
lowers its standards, and brings it into disrepute.^[5]

Judge Gorospe not only failed to religiously comply with the
aforesaid mandatory provision but also disregarded Section 15(3), Article VIII
of the Constitution which requires that
“(u)pon the expiration of the corresponding period, a certification to
this effect signed by the x x x presiding judge shall forthwith be issued and a
copy thereof attached to the record of the case or matter, and served upon the
parties. The certification shall state
why a decision or resolution has not been rendered or issued within said
period.”

These various infractions
of the aforementioned mandatory provisions could have been avoided had he
notified this Court of his supposed predicament which he has now belatedly
narrated, and asked for an extension of time within which to decide the cases
which had long been overdue. Thereby,
the Court could have duly availed of its power of administrative supervision to
promptly institute remedial measures. The mysterious silence of Judge Gorospe, although he could not have been
unaware of the injustice that his inaction was causing to the litigants in his
court, casts a cloud of dubiety over the justifications advanced in his
Explanation.

Obviously, it slipped His
Honor’s mind, or he chose to ignore the fact, that he should be the embodiment
of competence, integrity, and independence^[6] and that the “public trust”
character of his office imposes upon him the highest degree of responsibility and efficiency.^[7] At any rate, we are inclined in this
instance to grant some degree of mitigation to his liability for such serious
nonfeasances and neglect of duty.

ACCORDINGLY, Judge Ernesto H. Gorospe is hereby ORDERED to
pay a fine of P5,000.00, with a STERN WARNING that a repetition of the same or
similar acts in the future will be dealt with more severely. Let a copy of this resolution be attached to
his personal records.

SO ORDERED.

Narvasa, C.J., (Chairman), Padilla, Puno, and Mendoza, JJ., concur.

^[1]
Memorandum to the Chief Justice, dated
September 30, 1993, 1-7.

^[2]
Juan vs. Arias, A.M. No. P-310,
August 23, 1976, 72 SCRA 404.

^[3]
Section 15(1)(2), Article VIII.

^[4]
Bendesula vs. Laya, A.M. No. 144-CFI, July 18, 1974, 58 SCRA 16.

^[5]
In re Impeachment of Hon. Tomas Flordeliza, 44 Phil. 608 (1923).

^[6]
Canon 1, Rule 1.01, Code of Judicial Conduct.

^[7]
Bentulan vs. Dumatol, A.M. No. RTJ-93-999, June 15, 1994.