CALO VS DE GAMO CASE DIGEST

A.C. No. 516 June 27, 1967
TRANQUILINO O. CALO, JR., petitioner,
vs.
ESTEBAN DEGAMO, respondent.


LEGAL ETHICS; CANON 10.01

FACTS:

  • Esteban Degamo, as an applicant to the position of Chief of Police subscribed and swore to a filled-out "Information Sheet" before Mayor Malimit of the same municipality. 
  • One item required to be filled out reads:
    • Criminal or police record, if any, including those which did not reach the Court. (State the details of case and the final outcome.)" to which respondent answered, "None."

  • Having accomplished the form, the respondent was appointed by the mayor to the position applied for

  • However, on the day the respondent swore to the information sheet, there was pending criminal case against him in the CFI for illegal possession of explosive powder. The respondent was also charged for perjury on the same facts upon which he is now proceeded against as a member of the Philippine bar. 

  • In his defense, the respondent claims that his answer "None" to the aforequoted questionnaire was made in good faith, it being his honest interpretation of the particular question that it referred to a final judgment or conviction

ISSUE:

Whether or not he acted honestly when he denied under oath the existence against him of any criminal or police record, including those that did not reach the court.

HELD:

  • NO. He did not tell the truth. He deliberately concealed it in order to secure an appointment in his own favor. He, therefore, failed to maintain that high degree of morality expected and required of a member of the bar and he has violated his oath as a lawyer to "do no falsehood"
  • The questionnaire was simple, couched in ordinary terms and devoid of legalism hence, it needed no interpretation. It only called for simple information. That it asked for records "which did not reach the Court" entirely disproves respondent's technical twist to the question as referring to final judgments or convictions
  • Respondent invokes the defense of prescription. This defense does not lie; the rule is that the ordinary statutes of limitation have no application to disbarment proceedings, nor does the circumstance that the facts set up as a ground for disbarment constitute a crime, prosecution for which in a criminal proceeding is barred by limitation, affect the disbarment proceeding
  • Nor is the pendency for perjury a prejudicial question, since the ground for disbarment in the present proceeding is not for conviction of a crime involving moral turpitude but for gross misconduct. A violation of a criminal law is not a bar to disbarment and an acquittal is no obstacle to cancellation of the lawyer's license.
  • Respondent Esteban Degamo is hereby disbarred, and his name ordered stricken from the roll of attorneys. So ordered.

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