FACTS:
Complainants were government
employees. Through respondent, Lourdes renewed a loan application from Rodela
Loans Inc., in the amount of P10,000.00. She issued and delivered 5 PNB blank
checks, which served as collateral for the approved loan as well as for the
future loans. Lourdes paid respondent P14,874.37 intended to the loan plus
surcharges, penalties, and interests, for which the latter issued a receipt.
Notwithstanding the full payment of the loan, respondent filled up the blank
checks entrusted to him by writing on those checks amounts that had not been
agreed upon at all and deposited the same checks which were dishonored upon
presentment because the account is already closed. Thereafter, he filed a
criminal case against complainants for estafa and for violation of B.P. 22.
Thus, complainants filed a verified petition for the disbarment of Atty.
Deciembre and charged the respondent with willful and deliberate acts of
dishonesty, falsification and conduct unbecoming a member of the Bar.
ISSUE:
Whether or not respondent lawyer is guilty of gross misconduct and violation of
Rules 1.01 and 7.03 of the Code of Professional Responsibility.
HELD:
YES.
Respondent lawyer violated Rules 1.01 and 7.03 of the Code of Professional
Responsibility for he seriously transgressed by his malevolent act of filling
up the blank checks by indicating amounts that had not been agreed upon at all
and despite full knowledge that the loan supposed to be secured by the checks
had already been paid. His was a brazen act of falsification of a commercial
document, resorted to for his material gain. Respondent is clearly guilty of
serious dishonesty and professional misconduct. He committed an act indicative
of moral depravity not expected from, and highly unbecoming a member of the
bar. His propensity for employing deceit and misrepresentation is
reprehensible. His misuse of the filled-up checks that led to the detention of
one petitioner is loathsome.
Respondent is hereby indefinitely
SUSPENDED from the practice of law.
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