MANILA, Philippines — The Supreme Court (SC) on Thursday suspended from practice a lawyer who publicly insulted and undermined the reputation of Victoria “Vicki” Belo-Henares and the Belo Medical Group, Inc. in a Facebook post.
Lawyer Roberto “Argee” Guevarra will be suspended from the practice of law for one year after the SC First Division found him guilty of violating Rules 7.03, 8.01, and 19.01 of the Code of Professional Responsibility.
Guevarra represented client Josefina Norcio, who filed a criminal case against Belo for an allegedly mishandled surgical procedure on her buttocks in 2002 and 2005. In 2009, he wrote a series of posts on his Facebook account which contained insults and verbal abuse against Belo, prompting the latter to file an administrative complaint to disbar him.
“A punctilious scrutiny of the Facebook remarks complained of disclosed that they were ostensibly made with malice tending to insult and tarnish the reputation of complainant and BMGI,” said the court.
“Calling complainant a ‘quack doctor,’ ‘Reyna ng Kaplastikan,’ ‘Reyna ng Payola,’ and ‘Reyna ng Kapalpakan,’ and insinuating that she has been bribing people to destroy respondent smacks of bad faith and reveals an intention to besmirch the name and reputation of complainant, as well as BMGI,” the SC wrote in its 13-page decision promulgated by Associate Justice Estela Perlas-Bernabe last December 1.
Through its investigation, the high court also found that Guevarra also attributed criminal negligence upon Belo and her clinic by accusing the doctor of malpractice and disfiguring his client Norcio in his Facebook post, labeling her clinic as a “Frankenstein Factory.” Guevarra also threatened to paralyze the clinic and called for a boycott of Belo Medical services despite the pending criminal cases Norcio had already filed against the doctor.
In his Facebook posts, Guevarra wrote, that Belo “will go down in Medical History as a QUACK DOCTOR!!! QUACK QUACK QUACK QUACK,” among others. He also said he was “out to get Puwetic Justice here!” and that he was thinking “how the payola machinery of Vicki Belo killed the news of a picket demonstration in front of the Belo clinic.”
The SC reminded that as a lawyer, Guevarra is bound to observe proper decorum at all times, be it in his public or private life, which he disregarded when he posted remarks with Belo and her clinic as subjects.
“Instead, he acted inappropriately and rudely; he used words unbecoming of an officer of the law, and conducted himself in an aggressive was by hurling insults and maligning complainant’s and BMGI’s reputation,” the SC said.
The high tribunal added that Guevarra never denied that he posted the purportedly vulgar and obscene remarks about Belo and her clinic on his Facebook account, alleging in his defense that his right to privacy was violated by the doctor when she accessed his Facebook posts since the same were “private remarks” on his “private account” that could only be viewed by his circle of friends.
The decision proved that even the changing of privacy restrictions in posts doesn't guarantee absolution from a case. SC stressed that even if Guevarra’s allegation that his posts were limited to or viewable by his “Friends” only, restricting the privacy of one’s Facebook posts to “Friends” does not ensure absolute protection from the prying eyes of another user who does not belong to one’s circle of friends.
“In other words, utilization of these privacy tools is the manifestation, in the cyber world, of the user’s invocation of his or her right to privacy,” the court said.
SC also rejected Guevarra’s defense that his remarks were written in the exercise of his freedom of speech and expression, stressing that the constitutional right of freedom of expression may not be availed of to broadcast lies or half-truths, insult others, destroy their name or reputation or bring them into disrepute. — Rosette Adel