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Hipos, Sr. v. Bay
Hipos, Sr. v. Bay
Bay
Facts:
Two Informations for the crime of rape and one Information for the crime of acts of
lasciviousness were filed against petitioners Darryl Hipos et al., before Branch 86 of the
Regional Trial Court of Quezon City. Petitioners filed their Joint Memorandum to Dismiss the
Case[s] before the City Prosecutor. They claimed that there was no probable cause to hold
them liable for the crimes charged.
Petitioners’ counsel tries to convince us that a judge is allowed to deny a Motion to Withdraw
Informations from the prosecution only when there is grave abuse of discretion on the part of
the prosecutors moving for such withdrawal; and that, where there is no grave abuse of
discretion on the part of the prosecutors, the denial of the Motion to Withdraw Informations is
void. Petitioners' counsel states in the Memorandum:
6.10. Furthermore, the ORDER dated October 2, 2006 of the Respondent Judge BAY consisting
of 9 pages which was attached to the URGENT PETITION did not point out any iota of grave
abuse of discretion committed by Asst. City Prosecutor De Vera in issuing his Resolution in favor
of the sons of the Petitioners. Hence, the ORDER issued by RJBAY is NULL and VOID in view of
the recent ruling of the Hon. Supreme Court in Ledesma v. Court of Appeals, G.R. No. 113216,
September 5, 1997, 86 SCAD 695, 278 SCRA 657 which states that:
"In the absence of a finding of grave abuse of discretion, the court's bare denial of a motion
to withdraw information pursuant to the Secretary's resolution is void."(Underscoring ours)
Issue:
WON counsel’s (Atty. Procopio S. Beltran) statement in the Memorandum is a violation of legal
ethics.
Ruling:
Yes. It very much appears that the counsel of petitioners is purposely misleading this Court, in
violation of Rule 10.02 of the Code of Professional Responsibility, which provides:
Rule 10.02 - A lawyer shall not knowingly misquote or misrepresent the contents of a paper, the
language or the argument of opposing counsel, or the text of a decision or authority, or
knowingly cite as law a provision already rendered inoperative by repel or amendment, or
assert as a fact that which has not been proved.
Counsel's use of block quotation and quotation marks signifies that he intends to make it
appear that the passages are the exact words of the Court. Furthermore, putting the words
"Underscoring ours" after the text implies that, except for the underscoring, the text is a faithful
reproduction of the original. Accordingly, we are ordering Atty. Procopio S. Beltran, Jr. to show
cause why he should not be disciplined as a member of the Bar.