Source: http://lawlibrary.chanrobles.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=82888:56727&catid=1581&Itemid=566
Timestamp: 2019-04-22 08:18:19+00:00

Document:
A.C. No. 5329, March 18, 2014 - HEINZ R. HECK, Complainant, v. CITY PROSECUTOR CASIANO A. GAMOTIN, JR., Respondent.
HEINZ R. HECK, Complainant, v. CITY PROSECUTOR CASIANO A. GAMOTIN, JR., Respondent.
This administrative complaint was brought against a City Prosecutor whose manner of dealing with the complainant, a foreigner, had offended the latter. We dismiss the complaint because of the complainant’s failure to prove that the respondent thereby breached any canon of professional conduct or legal ethics. Indeed, every lawyer who is administratively charged is presumed innocent of wrongdoing.
Heck then left the office of the respondent upon the prodding of his counsel. He claimed that his wife and child became very scared.
However, unlike the OBC, we do not find any justification to sanction the respondent. A lawyer like the respondent is not to be sanctioned for every perceived misconduct or wrong actuation. He is still to be presumed innocent of wrongdoing until the proof arrayed against him establishes otherwise. It is the burden of the complainant to properly show that the assailed conduct or actuation constituted a breach of the norms of professional conduct and legal ethics. Otherwise, the lawyer merits exoneration.
To begin with, the holding of the meeting between Atty. Babarin, Heck’s counsel, and Atty. Adaza in the respondent’s office was not suspicious or irregular, contrary to the insinuation of Heck. We are not unmindful of the practice of some legal practitioners to arrange to meet with their opposing counsels and their clients in the premises of the offices of the public prosecutors or in the courthouses primarily because such premises are either a convenient or a neutral ground for both sides. Accordingly, holding the meeting between Heck and his adversary, with their respective counsels, in the respondent’s office did not by itself indicate any illegal or corrupt activity. We also note that the respondent was not present in the meeting.
Secondly, we cannot sanction the respondent for having angrily reacted to Heck’s unexpected tirade in his presence. The respondent was not then reacting to an attack on his person, but to Heck’s disrespectful remark against Philippine authorities in general. Any self–respecting government official like the respondent should feel justly affronted by any expression or show of disrespect in his presence, including harsh words like those uttered by Heck. Whether or not Heck was justified in making the utterance is of no relevance to us. Lawyers may be expected to maintain their composure and decorum at all times, but they are still human, and their emotions are like those of other normal people placed in unexpected situations that can crack their veneer of self–control. That is how we now view the actuation of the respondent in reacting to Heck’s utterance. The Court will not permit the respondent’s good record to be tarnished by his having promptly reacted to Heck’s remark.
Moreover, Heck could have sincerely perceived the respondent’s actuations to be arrogant and overbearing, but it is not fair for us to take the respondent to task in the context of the events and occasions in which the actuations occurred in the absence of a credible showing that his actuations had been impelled by any bad motive, or had amounted to any breach of any canon of professional conduct or legal ethics.
We are inclined to believe the respondent’s explanation.
The Court meted on Atty. Adaza the suspension from the practice of law in its decision promulgated on March 27, 2000 in Adm. Case No. 4083 entitled Gonato v. Adaza.17 When Heck confronted the respondent on September 15, 2000 about his allowing Atty. Adaza to practice law despite his suspension, the respondent asked when Heck had learned of the suspension. The respondent thereby implied that he had been unaware of the suspension until then.
We believe that the respondent was not yet aware of the suspension at that time. In Heck v. Atty. Versoza (Adm. Case No. 5330, December 5, 2000),18 the Court clarified that Atty. Adaza’s suspension became final and effective only after his receipt on September 5, 2000 of the resolution denying his motion for reconsideration with finality; and explained that he would be denied his right to due process if his suspension were to be made operative on March 27, 2000, the date when the Court ordered his suspension for six months. The Court further clarified in Heck v. Atty. Versoza that the courts in the country as well as the public would be informed of the suspension only after the lapse of a reasonable period after September 5, 2000 considering that as a matter of policy the circularization of the order of suspension could be done only after the decision upon the suspension had attained finality.
It was possible that at the occasion when Atty. Adaza appeared before the respondent on September 15, 2000, his suspension had not yet attained finality, or that the order of suspension had not yet been known to the respondent. Accordingly, it will be unjustified to hold the respondent liable for allowing Atty. Adaza to practice law and to represent his client in the OCP of Cagayan de Oro City.
WHEREFORE, the Court DISMISSES the complaint for disbarment against respondent ATTY. CASIANO A. GAMOTIN, JR.; and CONSIDERS this administrative matter closed and terminated.
Sereno, C.J., Carpio, Velasco, Jr., Leonardo–De Castro, Brion, Peralta, Del Castillo, Abad, Villarama, Jr., Perez, Mendoza, Reyes, and Leonen, JJ., concur.
8 Id. at 42–47; Comment of the respondent.
16Kara–an v. Pineda, A.C. No. 4306, March 28, 2007, 519 SCRA 143,146.

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