Lawyer seeks delisting of five prosecutors

CEBU, Philippines - The fight of the former president of the Integrated Bar of the Philippines-Cebu Chapter against five prosecutors continues, as he asked the Supreme Court to delist them from the roll of attorneys for allegedly being partial in resolving his complaints.

Dionesio Cañete, currently the president of Doce Pares Inc. and Academy of Eskrima, submitted to the Supreme Court a "petition for voluntary delisting in the roll of attorneys" Prosecutors Van Russel Inopiquez, Gandhi Truya, Aida Sanchez, Rodulph Joseph Carillo, and Maria Luisa Ratilla.

He described the remedy as unique since nobody has filed the same ever since and that it was a product of his "disillusion, frustration, utter disappointment as well as humiliation and embarrassment inflicted by the highly unfair and brutally unjust action of my brothers in the legal profession."

"The filing of the instant petition not only diminishes herein petitioner's (Cañete's) pain and humiliation but also punctuates his point that may hopefully lead to a more meaningful reform and re-orientation of our prosecutors and judges so as to eradicate or at least minimize corruption…," he stated.

Cañete has also filed before the Office of the Ombudsman in the Visayas complaints over the same issue. But the anti-graft office forwarded it to the Regional State Prosecutor-7 for lack of jurisdiction. The complaint remains pending.

His complaints filed against the five prosecutors in January this year came after the dismissal of the estafa complaint against Cebu City MSK Traders president Lucia Garcia and the perjury case against Retchie Manarog, also of MSK. Both resolutions of the complaints were promulgated in July and August 2015, respectively.

Cañete alleged that investigating prosecutor Inopiquez, and Truya being the reviewing prosecutor, and Ratilla as the approving prosecutor, "wrongfully" and "unjustly" dismissed the estafa complaint, which stemmed from the contract of lease between Cebu City MSK Traders and Academy of Eskrima.

He filed the estafa complaint after learning that MSK allegedly pretended to be the owner of the subject lots of the contract and deceived the Academy of Eskrima to lease the lots which turned out to be owned by another corporation.

He accused Inopiquez, Truya and Ratilla of issuing an "erroneous finding" in the estafa complaint, with none of them rectified the alleged mistakes. He was referring to a resolution stating that Garcia denied the allegations even if there was no counter-affidavit filed by Garcia.

The resolution stated that Garcia failed to submit an affidavit to controvert the allegations despite being subpoenaed, "hence, the resolution of this case is based solely on the evidence submitted by the complainant (Cañete)."

The case remains pending before the trial court.

Further, Cañete added that he is willing to be penalized or be fined by the Supreme Court if it finds that even one of the cases will be found unworthy of his petition.

Truya had denied the allegation.

"If five or more prosecutors agree that all his complaints are dismissible then something must be wrong with his complaints," Truya said.

He said Cañete could have taken legal moves in assailing the resolutions.

"(But he) chose to attack us personally. This is not to mention that he went to the media to ventilate the arguments he had on the merits of his lost case. That complaint only speaks of how low he can go if he loses a case. I felt sad for him," he said.

He added that he had no knowledge on the parties of the complaints.

"As reviewing officer, I simply recommend for approval the resolution of (prosecutor) Inopiquez. I don't have personal interest over his case. I can only surmise that his motive was to intimidate our office and all the prosecutors who dismissed all his cases. Our office should not be intimidated by anyone, who will be aggrieved by our decisions. Else we will lose the trust of the public," he added.  (FREEMAN)