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  • Umaguing Vs de Vera

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    Norie Sapanta
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    Atty. De Vera represented a client in an election protest case but submitted affidavits with falsified signatures. One affidavit was signed by a relative of the material witness instead of the witness. The court found the signatures were falsified and that Atty. De Vera had enough time to obtain proper signatures but hastily filed anyway. The Integrated Bar of the Philippines recommended a 2 month suspension. The Supreme Court agrees Atty. De Vera is liable and suspends him from practice for 6 months for violating his oath and the Code of Professional Responsibility by submitting a falsified document in court.

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    Umaguing vs De Vera

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    Atty. De Vera represented a client in an election protest case but submitted affidavits with falsified signatures. One affidavit was signed by a relative of the material witness instead of the witness. The court found the signatures were falsified and that Atty. De Vera had enough time to obtain proper signatures but hastily filed anyway. The Integrated Bar of the Philippines recommended a 2 month suspension. The Supreme Court agrees Atty. De Vera is liable and suspends him from practice for 6 months for violating his oath and the Code of Professional Responsibility by submitting a falsified document in court.

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    59 views2 pages

    Umaguing Vs de Vera

    Uploaded by

    Norie Sapanta
    Atty. De Vera represented a client in an election protest case but submitted affidavits with falsified signatures. One affidavit was signed by a relative of the material witness instead of the witness. The court found the signatures were falsified and that Atty. De Vera had enough time to obtain proper signatures but hastily filed anyway. The Integrated Bar of the Philippines recommended a 2 month suspension. The Supreme Court agrees Atty. De Vera is liable and suspends him from practice for 6 months for violating his oath and the Code of Professional Responsibility by submitting a falsified document in court.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Flag for inappropriate content
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    of 2

    1. Umaguing vs. De Vera, 749 SCRA 473, A.C. No.

    10451 February 4, 2015


    Atty. De Vera is SUSPENDED for 6 months.
    FACTS:
    UMAGUING ran for the position of SK Chairman but lost to her rival by 1 vote.
    She then acquired the service of Atty. De Vera for her election protest.
    De Vera was given enough time to prepare but only rushed to prepare the
    affidavits when the deadline was near. When she needed the signatures of 2 material
    witnesses, they were unavailable. Thus, she allegedly instructed Lalong-isip to find the
    nearest of kin of the witnesses to ask them to sign the affidavits. The signing over of
    Lachica’s and Almera’s names were done by Christina Papin (Papin) and Elsa Almera-
    Almacen, respectively. Then, Atty. De Vera had all the documents notarized.
    Lachica discovered the falsification and denied the signature in the affidavit. The
    presiding Judge found that the signatures were falsified. The Judge pointed out that
    Atty. De Vera wanted to change this error but it was just an excuse since Atty. De Vera
    had enough time to have the affidavits personally signed by the affiants but still hastily
    filed the election protest with full knowledge that the affidavits at hand were falsified.
    IBP: Recommended that De Vera be suspended for 2 months.
    ISSUE: Whether Atty. De Vera should be administratively liable.
    HELD:
    Yes. It is a fundamental rule that every lawyer is expected to be honest, imbued with
    integrity, and trustworthy in his dealings with his client and with the courts.
    These expectations, though high and demanding, are the professional and ethical
    burdens of every member of the Philippine Bar, for they have been given full expression
    in the Lawyer’s Oath that every lawyer of this country has taken upon admission as a
    bona fide member of the Law Profession.
    Every lawyer is a servant of the law, and has to observe and maintain the rule of law
    as well as be an exemplar worthy of emulation by others. It is not a coincidence,
    therefore, that the core values of honesty, integrity, and trustworthiness are
    emphatically reiterated by the Code of Professional Responsibility. In this light, Rule
    10.01, Canon 10 of the Code of Professional Responsibility provides that “[a] lawyer
    shall not do any falsehood, nor consent to the doing of any in Court; nor shall he
    mislead, or allow the Court to be misled by any artifice.

    Atty. De Vera sanctioned the submission of a falsified affidavit, i.e., Almera’s


    affidavit, before the court in his desire to beat the November 8, 2008 deadline for filing
    the election protest of Umaguing.
    The assertion that Atty. De Vera authorized the falsification of Almera’s affidavit is
    rendered more believable by the absence of Atty. De Vera’s comment on the same. In
    fact, in his Motion for Reconsideration of the IBP Board of Governors’ Resolution dated
    December 14, 2012, no specific denial was proffered by Atty. De Vera on this score.
    Instead, he only asserted that he was not the one who notarized the subject affidavits
    but another notary public, who he does not even know or has seen in his entire life, and
    that he had no knowledge of the falsification of the impugned documents, much less of
    the participation in using the same. Unfortunately for Atty. De Vera, the Court views the
    same to be a mere general denial which cannot overcome Elsa Almera-Almacen’s
    positive testimony that he indeed participated in the procurement of her signature and
    the signing of the affidavit, all in support of the claim of falsification.

    Atty. De Vera is found guilty of violating the Lawyer’s Oath and Rule 10.01, Canon 10 of
    the Code of Professional Responsibility (CPR) by submitting a falsified document before
    a court.

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