CIVIL SERVICE COMMISSION, PETITIONER, VS. DELIA T. CORTEZ, RESPONDENT.

Civil Service Commission versus Cortez

The Case

This is a petition for review on certiorari brought by the Civil Service Commission against Delia T. Cortez, the Chief of its Examination and Placement Services Division in its regional office in Cagayan de Oro City. The Commission had dismissed her from the service for dishonesty, grave misconduct, and conduct grossly prejudicial to the best interest of the service after she was caught selling recycled examination fee stamps for her own gain. The Court of Appeals softened the penalty to forced resignation with all benefits. The Commission came to the Supreme Court asking whether the penalty of dismissal was too harsh. The case matters because it settles a question every administrative law examinee must answer: when may length of service and first offense be counted as mitigating circumstances, and when do they count against the erring public servant?

Procedural History

The Civil Service Commission formally charged Cortez, placed her under preventive suspension, conducted a formal investigation, and in its resolution of February 2001 found her guilty. It ordered her dismissed from the service with forfeiture of benefits and disqualification from reemployment in the government service, without prejudice to any civil or criminal liability. It denied her motion for reconsideration.

Cortez went up to the Court of Appeals on a petition for review under Rule 43. She raised two questions there: violation of administrative due process, and the propriety of the penalty of dismissal. The Court of Appeals, in its decision of July 2002, held that she had been accorded administrative due process, but agreed that dismissal was too harsh. It modified the penalty to forced resignation with entitlement to all benefits under the law. It denied the Commission's motion for reconsideration for having been filed one day late.

The Commission then filed the present petition for review on certiorari under Rule 45 before the Supreme Court, assigning as the sole issue whether the penalty of dismissal was too harsh considering that Cortez was a first-time offender with more than twenty-one years in the government service.

Facts

On June 26, 1998, two teenagers, June Grace Abina and Rubielyn Ofredo, went to the regional office to file application forms for the Career Service Professional Examination on behalf of their aunt and her co-employees. The cashier told them to first secure approval of the forms at the Examination and Placement Services Division. There, Cortez pasted a stamp worth 150 pesos on each of the four application forms and collected 900 pesos from the girls, returning 300 pesos in change.

When the girls returned to the cashier to ask about other fees, the cashier noticed that the serial numbers of the stamps did not match those issued to the office. The acting cashier, Angeline Lim, accompanied the girls back to the division, where a confrontation took place. After Lim copied the serial numbers in front of her, Cortez detached the stamps and went inside the records section, where she handed Lim 600 pesos. Lim refused the money and told her to return it personally to the girls, which Cortez did. The girls then bought proper stamps at the cashier's office.

Lim traced the stamps and found they belonged to a batch issued and sold in 1995 for the Professional Board Examination for Teachers. The next day, Cortez approached Lim and warned her that it would be better if the matter did not reach top management, because the person behind the recycled stamps would see to it that the two of them would be the first to lose their jobs. In her defense, Cortez claimed the forms already bore the stamps when handed to her, that she removed them so the applicants could personally thumbmark the forms, and that the charges were lies concocted by Lim to secure a promotion. The Commission found the complainants' version credible, as their testimonies were corroborated by the cashier and the acting cashier, while Cortez offered only denials.

Issues

• Whether or not the penalty of dismissal imposed on Cortez is too harsh, considering that she is a first-time offender and had served the government for more than twenty-one years.
• Whether or not length of service and first offense may be appreciated as mitigating circumstances in her favor.
• Whether or not the Court of Appeals erred in imposing the penalty of forced resignation, which is not provided for in the Administrative Code of 1987.

Applicable Provisions

Section 54 of the Uniform Rules on Administrative Cases in the Civil Service provides:

Section 54. Manner of imposition. When applicable, the imposition of the penalty may be made in accordance with the manner provided herein below: The minimum of the penalty shall be imposed where only mitigating and no aggravating circumstances are present. The medium of the penalty shall be imposed where no mitigating and aggravating circumstances are present. The maximum of the penalty shall be imposed where only aggravating and no mitigating circumstances are present. Where aggravating and mitigating circumstances are present, paragraph (a) shall be applied where there are more mitigating circumstances present; paragraph (b) shall be applied when the circumstances equally offset each other; and paragraph (c) shall be applied when there are more aggravating circumstances.

This provision governs how mitigating and aggravating circumstances affect the penalty, and the Court uses it to show that circumstances may be weighed, but only where they are properly appreciated.

Section 53 of the same Uniform Rules provides:

Section 53. Extenuating, Mitigating, Aggravating, or Alternative Circumstances. In the determination of the penalties imposed, mitigating, aggravating and alternative circumstances attendant to the commission of the offense shall be considered.

Among the circumstances listed in that section are taking undue advantage of official position and length of service in the government. This is the textual basis for treating length of service as an alternative circumstance, which may help or hurt the erring employee depending on the facts.

Ruling

On the first issue, the Court ruled in favor of the Civil Service Commission. Dishonesty, grave misconduct, and conduct grossly prejudicial to the best interest of the service are grave offenses punishable by dismissal from the service. As provided by law, there is no other penalty that should be imposed on the respondent than dismissal. The Court acknowledged that mitigating and aggravating circumstances may be considered, and that in past cases it had lowered dismissal to forced resignation or suspension. But it asked whether Cortez was entitled to a lesser penalty on these facts, and answered no.

On the second issue, the Court held that length of service is not a magic word that, once invoked, will automatically be considered as a mitigating circumstance. It is an alternative circumstance, which may be mitigating or aggravating depending on the factual milieu of each case. Here, it counted against her. She had been in the Commission for twenty-one years, the last eight as Chief of the division, and it was precisely that position that gave her access to the previously processed application forms from which she detached the stamps. The stamps she was caught selling were issued in 1995, when she was already chief. Her length of service therefore helped her commit the offense. The Court also held that length of service is not considered where the offense is serious, and that the gravity of the offense outweighed the fact that it was her first offense. It rejected her argument that no damage was caused because she returned the money and the amount was only 600 pesos, calling this a distorted sense of values, and reminding her that a public office is a public trust.

On the third issue, the Court agreed with the Commission that forced resignation is not an administrative penalty under the Administrative Code of 1987, and that imposing it without forfeiture of benefits and disqualification would effectively reward an erring employee instead of punishing her.

Doctrine

Dishonesty, grave misconduct, and conduct grossly prejudicial to the best interest of the service are grave offenses punishable by dismissal from the service. Under Section 53 of the Uniform Rules on Administrative Cases in the Civil Service, length of service is an alternative circumstance: it may mitigate or aggravate depending on the facts. It is not appreciated in favor of the employee where the offense is serious, or where the length of service enabled the commission of the offense. Neither is first offense automatically mitigating where the gravity of the offense outweighs it. Forced resignation is not a penalty known to the Administrative Code of 1987.

Disposition

The Court granted the petition, set aside the decision and resolution of the Court of Appeals, and reinstated the penalty of dismissal from the service with forfeiture of benefits and disqualification from reemployment in the government service, without prejudice to any civil or criminal liability.

Remember This

Length of service is not a magic word: it is an alternative circumstance that can be taken against the employee when it helped her commit the offense or when the offense is grave. Examiners use this case to test whether you will mechanically credit length of service and first offense as mitigating, or weigh them against the gravity of the offense as the Court did here.