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INTRODUCTION OF FINANCIAL STATEMENT

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FIRST DIVISION
[G.R. No. L-27654. February 18, 1970.]
IN THE MATTER OF PROCEEDING FOR DISCIPLINARY ACTION AGAINST ATTY.
VICENTE RAUL ALMACEN in L-27654, ANTONIO H. CALERO vs. VIRGINIA Y.
YAPTINCHAY.
SYLLABUS
1. REMEDIAL LAW; SUSPENSION AND DISBARMENT; MINUTE RESOLUTIONS
NOT DECISIONS WITHIN THE MEANING OF THE CONSTITUTION. Short
resolutions or, in current Court practice, minute "resolutions," are not decisions within the
above constitutional requirement. They merely hold that the petitions for review should
not be entertained in view of the provisions of Rule 46 of the Rules of Court. A petition to
review the decision of the Court of Appeals is not a matter of right, but of sound judicial
discretion. And so, there is no need to fully explain the Court's denial.
2. ID.; ID.; REQUIREMENTS OF THE RULE ON SERVICE OF PLEADINGS,
MANDATORY. As a law practitioner who was admitted to the Bar as far back as 1941,
Atty. Almacen knew or ought to have known that for a motion for reconsideration to
stay the running of the period of appeal, the movant must not only serve a copy of the
motion upon the adverse party (which he did), but also notify the adverse party of the time
and place of hearing (which admittedly he did not). Since there is lack of notice in this
regard, the Court cannot act upon said motion for it is nothing but a useless piece of
paper. If Atty. Almacen failed to move the appellate court to review the lower court's
judgment, he has only himself to blame. His own negligence caused the forfeiture of the
remedy of appeal, which, incidentally, is not a matter of right.
3. ID.; ID.; COURTS AND JUDGES NOT SACROSANCT; DUTY OF LAWYER
THERETO. Courts and judges are not sacrosanct. They should and expect critical
evaluation of their performance. For like the executive and the legislative branches, the
judiciary is rooted in the soil of democratic society, nourished by the periodic appraisal of
the citizens whom it is expected to serve. Criticism of the courts is an important part of
the traditional work of the lawyer. In the prosecution of appeals, he points out the errors
of lower courts. Hence, as a citizen and as an officer of the court, a lawyer is expected
not only to exercise the right, but also to consider it his duty to avail of such right.
4. ID.; ID.; NATURE AND STANDARDS OF CRITICISM TOWARDS THE COURT.
The cardinal condition of all such criticism directed against the Courts or its judges that
it shall be bona fide and shall not spill over the walls of decency and propriety. A wide
chasm exists between fair criticism, on the one hand, and abuse and slander of courts
and the judges thereof, on the other. Intemperate and unfair criticism is a gross violation
of the duty of respect to courts. It is such a misconduct that subjects a lawyer to
disciplinary action.
5. ID.; ID.; DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES OF MEMBERS OF THE BAR.
Membership in the Bar imposes upon a person obligations and duties which are not mere
flux and ferment. His investiture into the legal profession places upon his shoulders no
burden more basic, more exacting and more imperative than that of respectful behavior
toward the courts. He vows solemnly to conduct himself "with all good fidelity . . . to the
courts." The Rules of Court constantly remind him to observe and maintain the respect
due to courts of justice and judicial officers." The first canon of legal ethics enjoins him "to
maintain towards the courts a respectful attitude, not for the sake of the temporary
incumbent of the judicial office, but for the maintenance of its supreme importance." A
lawyer may not divide his personality so as to be an attorney at one time and a mere
citizen at another. Thus, statements made by an attorney in private conversations or
communications or in the course of a political campaign, if couched in insulting language
as to bring into scorn and disrepute the administration of justice, may subject the attorney
to disciplinary action.
6. ID.; ID.; PROFESSIONAL MISCONDUCT, WHAT CONSTITUTES. Post-
litigation utterances or publications, made by lawyers, critical of the courts and their
judicial actuations, whether amounting to a crime or not, which transcend the permissible
bounds of fair comment and legitimate criticism and thereby tend to bring them into
disrepute or to subvert public confidence in their integrity and in the orderly administration

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of justice, constitute grave professional misconduct which may be visited with disbarment
or other lesser appropriate disciplinary sanctions by the Supreme Court in the exercise of
the prerogatives inherent in it as the duly constituted guardian of the morals and ethics of
the legal fraternity.
7. ID.; ID.; PROTECTIVE MANTLE OF CONTEMPT COVERS PENDING AS WELL
AS DECIDED CASES. To view the doctrinal rule that the protective mantle of contempt
may ordinarily be invoked only against scurrilous remarks or malicious innuendoes while
a court mulls over a pending case and not after the conclusion thereof, is erroneous. The
rule that bars contempt after a judicial proceedings has terminated has lost much of its
vitality. As expressed by Chief Justice Moran, there may still be contempt by publication
even after a case has been terminated.
8. ID.; ID.; DUTY OF THE COURT, NOT ONLY TO ADMIT BUT ALSO TO
DISCIPLINE AND EXCLUDE. By constitutional mandate, the Court has the solemn
duty, amongst others, to determine the rules for admission to the practice of law. Inherent
in this prerogative is the corresponding authority to discipline and exclude from the
practice of law those who have proved themselves unworthy of continued membership in
the Bar. Indeed, in this jurisdiction, that power to remove or suspend has risen above
being a mere inherent or incidental power. It has been elevated to an express mandate
by the Rules of Court.
9. ID.; ID.; NATURE OF DISCIPLINARY PROCEEDING AGAINST A MEMBER OF
THE BAR. Accent should be laid on the fact that disciplinary proceedings like the
present are sui generis. Neither purely civil nor purely criminal, this proceeding is not
and does not involve a trial of an action or a suit, but is rather an investigation by the
Court into the conduct of its officers. Not being intended to inflict punishment, it is in no
sense a criminal prosecution. Accordingly, there is neither a plaintiff nor a prosecutor
therein. It may be initiated by the Court motu proprio. Public interest is its primary objective
and the real question for determination is whether or not the attorney is still a fit person
to be allowed the privileges as such. Hence, in the exercise of its disciplinary powers, the
Court merely calls upon a member of the Bar to account for his actuations as an officer
of the Court with the end in view of preserving the purity of the legal profession and the
proper and honest administration of justice by purging the profession of members who by
their misconduct have proved themselves no longer worthy to be entrusted with the duties
and responsibilities pertaining to the office of an attorney. In such posture, there can thus
be no occasion to speak of a complainant or a prosecutor.
10. ID.; ID.; NATURE AND EXTENT OF SANCTIONS AGAINST A MEMBER OF THE
BAR, DISCRETIONARY UPON COURT. The discretion to assess under the
circumstances the imposable sanction is, of course, primarily addressed to the sound
discretion of the Court which, being neither arbitrary and despotic nor motivated by
personal animosity or prejudice, should ever be controlled by the imperative need that the
purity and independence of the Bar be scrupulously guarded and the dignity of and
respect due to the Court be zealously maintained.
R E S O L U T I O N
CASTRO, J p:
Before us is Atty. Vicente Raul Almacen's "Petition to Surrender Lawyer's Certificate of
Title," filed on September 26, 1967, in protest against what he therein asserts is "a great
injustice committed against his client by this Supreme Court." He indicts this Court, in his
own phrase, as a tribunal "peopled by men who are calloused to our pleas for justice, who
ignore without reasons their own applicable decisions and commit culpable violations of
the Constitution with impunity." His client's he continues, who was deeply aggrieved by
this Court's "unjust judgment," has become "one of the sacrificial victims before the altar
of hypocrisy." In the same breath that he alludes to the classic symbol of justice, he
ridicules the members of this Court, saying "that justice as administered by the present
members of the Supreme Court is not only blind, but also deaf and dumb." He then vows
to argue the cause of his client "in the people's forum," so that "the people may know of
the silent injustices committed by this Court," and that "whatever mistakes, wrongs and
injustices that were committed must never be repeated." He ends his petition with a prayer
that

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FIRST DIVISION [G.R. No. L-27654. February 18, 1970.] IN THE MATTER OF PROCEEDING FOR DISCIPLINARY ACTION AGAINST ATTY. VICENTE RAUL ALMACEN in L-27654, ANTONIO H. CALERO vs. VIRGINIA Y. YAPTINCHAY. SYLLABUS 1. REMEDIAL LAW; SUSPENSION AND DISBARMENT; MINUTE RESOLUTIONS NOT DECISIONS WITHIN THE MEANING OF THE CONSTITUTION. — Short resolutions or, in current Court practice, minute "resolutions," are not decisions within the above constitutional requirement. They merely hold that the petitions for review should not be entertained in view of the provisions of Rule 46 of the Rules of Court. A petition to review the decision of the Court of Appeals is not a matter of right, but of sound judicial discretion. And so, there is no need to fully explain the Court's denial. 2. ID.; ID.; REQUIREMENTS OF THE RULE ON SERVICE OF PLEADINGS, MANDATORY. — As a law practitioner who was admitted to the Bar as far back as 1941, Atty. Almacen knew — or ought to have known — that for a motion for reconsideration to stay the running of the period of appeal, the movant must not only serve a copy of the motion upon the adverse party (which he did), but also notify the adverse party of the time and place of hearing (which admittedly he did not). Since there is lack of notice in this regard, the Court cannot act upon said motion — for it is nothing but a useless piece of paper. If Atty. Almacen failed to move the appellate court to review the lower court's judgment, he has only himself to ...
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