[4 LR 19]

EN BANC
AM NO 90-5-2373 JULY 12, 1990
IN RE: ATTY. EMILIANO P. JURADO, JR. a.k.a. EMIL JURADO

Gentlemen,

Quoted hereunder for your information, is a resolution of the Court En Banc dated
July 12, 1990.

“Adm Matter No. 90-5-2373 (In Re: Atty. Emiliano P. Jurado, Jr. a.k.a. Emil Jurado). –

The front page of the Sunday, May 27, 1990 issue of the Manila Standard, a
national daily, carried the banner headline: “Rebellion complex does not exist – SC.”
And below it in smaller type, “State back to Square One in cases vs. Enrile, et. al.”
The lead article appeared in the following page under the sub-head “High Tribunal
reaffirms Hernandez Doctrine with 14-1 vote” and the by-line of “Emil Jurado, Manila
Standard Columnist” and reported, pertinently, that according to “well-placed
sources at the Supreme Court,” in a decision penned by Associate Justice Narvasa”
** to be announced tomorrow for immediate promulgation ** the court had “**
upheld a long standing precedent known as the Hernandez Doctrine ** (and)
reaffirmed that the crime of rebellion complexed with murder and other common
offenses does not exist ** (and) “* (b)y a vote of 14 to one ** denied the
government’s motion (sic) to repeal the doctrine.” It added that said majority
included Chief Justice Marcelo Fernan and that the lone opposition vote was Justice
Leo Medialea’s.

Mr. Jurado’s regular column on page 10 of the same issue which was titled
“SC decision knocks out gov’t lawyers.” And began with the word “SCOOP” in bold,
reiterated the above-quoted highlights of his page 2 report. If those details and the
photographs accompanying the report were not indication enough, mention therein
of the names of Senator Juan Ponce Enrile, ex-Assemblyman Homobono Adaza and
lawyer Rafael Recto, among others, made clear what the main subject of those
news items was: a supposed decision awaiting immediate promulgation on one or
another of the cases then pending in this Court that challenged the validity of
criminal informations charging various persons with rebellion with murder and
multiple frustrated murder in connection with the failed coup attempt of December,
1989.

The Monday, May 28, 1990 issue of the Manila Standard was headlined “High
Cort ruling hailed.” The lead Article by Amante E. Bigornia on page 2 reported that
the ruling had been hailed by unnamed “legal luminaries” and added further
supposed details about its adoption which the writer attributed to the paper’s
equally anonymous sources. In his column on page 9 of the same issue, Mr. Jurado
elaborated in his earlier report as follows:

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 “The Supreme Court is expected to promulgate today or
tomorrow its decision upholding the Hernandez doctrine that the
complex crime of rebellion with murder or frustrated murder does not
exist. The decision will be released as soon as it is signed by Justice
Manuel (sic) Gancayco and Justice Irene Cortes, who were expected to
arrive from abroad over the weekend. The two had earlier signified
their intention to uphold the Hernandez doctrine.

I must however, make certain clarifications about the Standard

exclusive yesterday on the Supreme Court decision. The High Court
voted 14-0 (not 14-1, as reported yesterday). As explained by my
unimpeachable source, who is not connected in any way with the
Supreme Court, Associate Justice Leo Medialea, who was reported to
have cast the dissenting vote, had in fact inhibited himself from the
process. Medialea’s son is a junior partner of the PECABAR Law Office,
the firm of Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile, who is charged with this complex
crime.”

“One Justice, who concurred in the decision abstained in the

case of the Panlilios because he is related to them and was their
lawyer at one time.”
The decision was penned by Associate Justice Andres Narvasa,
whose father the late Judge Gregorio Narvasa, decided in the 50s that
the complex crime of rebellion does not exist.”

While headlines and news about the matter continued to greet Manila
Standard readers on Tuesday, May 29, 1990, the tenor of these had materially
changed. The headlines now proclaimed that “Cory (referring to the President)
awaits SC ruling” and “Tribunal still deliberating rebellion complex issue.” The news
inside was no longer about a decision already reached or a ruling made. It reported
a statement of the Chief Justice, made through Assistance Clerk of Court Luz Puno,
that there was no such decision and that the matter was still under deliberation. For
the first time in three days, Mr. Jurado’s subject was silent on the subject.

The sequence of events is revealing. Having stood by their news story of two
days, Mr. Jurado and his newspaper had already began to “backtrack,” as it were,
by the third, confronted, no doubt, with the hard fact that it was not and could not
be, substantiated.

On that same Tuesday, the Court en banc issued a Resolution branding as

false the news reports of May 27, 1990, declaring that as of that day, no decision or
resolution on the subject of said reports have been signed, either by the supposed
ponente or any other member of the Court, and requiring Mr. Emil Jurado (full name
Emiliano P. Jurado, Jr: hereafter, “respondent” only), a member of the bar as well as
a journalist, to explain within five (5) days why he should not be dealt with
administratively” ** for publishing obviously false statements relative to the Court’s
action on a pending proceeding or otherwise indulging in speculation or conjecture,
or airing illicit information about the same.”

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 By the fourth day, nothing was left but excuses. In his column in the
Wednesday, May 30, 1990 issue of the Manila Standard, respondent acknowledge
having received the show-cause Resolution and sought to justify the questioned
news items as legitimate reporting duly verified [4 LR 20] by both himself and his
editor-in-chief and approved for publication of the latter. The same issued featured
an editorial which relevantly:

a) Admitted that “breaking” the story of the alleged decision

before its promulgation went against the usual practice of
awaiting the Court’s pronouncement thereof;
b) Admitted, also, awareness of the principle underlying such
practice: ** that premature disclosure and discussion may affect
the Supreme Court’s deliberation on the matter”;
c) Sought to justify such action on the people’s right to know about
decisions with “** momentous effect on many prominent people
** (and) important implications for the political process o this
country”;
d) Expressed the editor’s feeling that no violation of such principle
against premature disclosure of the Court’s decisions had been
committed; and
e) Clearly implied that the decision to publish the report as a news
story under respondent’s by-line, instead of as an item in his
column, had meant to evoke a reaction from the Court which
would have ignored a column item as opinion or gossip.

It is now of public knowledge that respondent’s claimed reliance on

“unimpeachable” sources had been totally misplaced. At the time of publication of
the reports in question, no ruling or decision on any of what have become widely
known by the misnomer “rebellion complex cases” had issued or was about to
issue. No action or pronouncement of the Court had given any intimation that a
ruling on the merits on any of them was in the offing. As a matter of fact, said cases
were still under deliberation, and the members of the Court had yet to reach that
agreement or consensus upon which alone a formal ruling or judgment could follow.
Quite apart from the consideration that a decision or resolution of the Court
becomes such, for all legal intents and purposes, only from the moment of its
promulgation1 – and none had to that time been promulgated, it was also a fact that
no decision or resolution of the tenor and character reported had been signed,
either by the supposed writer thereof, or by any other member of the Court.

Only on July 5, 1990 did the Court promulgate its Decision in G.R. Nos. 92163
(Enrile vs. Salazar, et. al.) and 92164 (Sps. Panlilio vs. De Leon, et. al.) upholding
the Hernandez ruling2 in the rebellion cases filed against the petitioners herein. Its
contents, by showing up the many inaccuracies in Mr. Jurado’s earlier accounts,
attest to the falsity of his report of its existence on or before May 27, 1990. Thus,
insofar as concerned the question of wheter or not the Hernandez ruling remains
binding precedent, it was not a 14-0 nor a 14-1, but a 12-1 decision, two members
1
Lianga Bay Logging Co., Inc. vs. Lopez Enage 152 SCRA 80 (1987); Ago vs. Court of Appeals, 6 SCRA 530 (1962)
2
99 Phil. 515 (1956)

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of the Court being on leave. The member first reported as having dissented
(Medialea, J.) did not in fact do so. He concurred with the majority in G.R. No. 92164
and abstained from voting in G.R. 92163. It was the Chief Justice who filed a dissent
on that principal issue. No member abstained in G.R. No. 92164 by reason of either
blood or past professional relationship with the petitioners therein. Of the 12
member majority, six (6) issued or concurred in separate opinions which, without
affecting their concurrence on the main ruling upholding Hernandez, expressed
dissent on, or reservations about, some points raised and discussed in the majority
opinion. The fact that so many members of the court found need to express their
own views underscores, independently of any disavowals on the part of the Court or
its officers, the improbability of any consensus having been reached – much more,
of a decision having been written or signed – at the time of the news reports in
question.

Under date of June 1, 1990, respondent filed a “Compliance” with the show-
cause Resolution which, while assuming responsibility for the publication of the
news reports of May 27, 1990 above referred to and offering his apologies to the
Court “** if ** (he had) in some way, actually hampered the administration of
justice, or obstructed the orderly workings of the Court, ** pleads in justification
freedom of the press as well as the right of the public to information on matters of
public concern, both he avers, being guaranteed by the Constitution.

What said Compliance makes immediately apparent is the wide variance

between the plain import of the news reports in question and that the of the
information upon which respondent admittedly based the same. Said reports –
which according to respondent were drafted, in part at least and in for inclusion in
his column, two days before they were actually published 3 - invariably advert to the
supposed ruling in the past tense, i.e., as a fait accompli, a decision already
reached, putting into writing and signed, thus” “(t)he Supreme Court has upheld a
long standing legal precedent known as the Hernandez doctrine **; (b)y a vote of 14
to one, the Tribunal already denied the government’s motion to repeal the doctrine
**; and (t)he ** decision was penned by Associate Justice Andres Narvasa and
concurred in by 13 other justices.: Bit, also by his own account, the information
upon which he based those reports was merely to the effect that ”** the Supreme
Court deliberations clearly pointed to an overwhelming majority for upholding the
Hern
andez doctrine ** and indicated ** the existence of a trend towards (such) a
consensus among the members of the Court.” 4 While such information might have
inspired speculation about a possible ruling, it simply did not warrant making, much
less publishing as news, a conclusion that a decision on the matter had already
been written and signed.

Thus, said reports, insofar as they assumed to chronicle an actual state of

facts, were not only objectively false, even in the context of what respondent
claimed had come to his knowledge, they were also grossly exaggerated and, at
best, speculative. If all that respondent had obtained from his unidentified sources
was information had reached a consensus, or that there was a trend towards a
3
Compliance, p. 2, par. 1
4
Id., also pp. 4-5 par. 1

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consensus, for upholding the Hernandez ruling – and it is notable that even as he
claims that his editors had checked out said information prior to publication and
obtained further details confirming its accuracy, he neglects to mention any of
those detains – its evolution into straight news that a ruling had in fact been written
and signed [4 LR 21] and was about to be promulgated cannot be defended on the
ground of either truth or honest error.

Neither does it merit belief that respondent’s editors had seriously applied
themselves to checking independently the capacity of information about a supposed
ruling before proposing to respondent and/or authorizing its publication. The implicit
admission in the editorial of May 30, 1990 that the reports were published as
straight news, not as comment or gossip, in order to provoke a reaction from the
Court clearly suggests that it was the Court that was expected to confirm or verify
the story, that expectation itself providing the justification for its publication; there
would otherwise be no reason for such action had respondent’s editors attempted
more than a desultory check or verification of said story. It further suggests that the
Court, ** jealous of its inner workings **, has to be prodded into announcing or
promulgating its decisions already made, however important, far-reaching or
urgent, the questions resolved and unmindful of the right of the people to be
informed thereof. The notion must be speedily rejected and laid to rest, being
wholly false and denigrative of the collective sense of duty of the members of this
Court.

Nothing so far stated, however, should be taken as in any manner implying

that objective truth or good faith will exonerate respondent here. The really relevant
question being whether the report and comments in questions, regardless of their
truth and of the motives or purposes behind their publication, are protected by the
constitutionally-guaranteed freedom of the press and the right of the people to
information on matters of public concern. 5 There is no dispute of the existence and
fundamental character of these guarantees. But equally fundamental, needing no
express statement or sanction in statute or charter because inherent in the very
nature of the judicial power and indispensable to the free and untrammeled
exercise by the courts of their traditional functions, is the principle of confidentiality
of all actuations of, or records or proceedings before, a Court in a pending action
which are not essentially public in character. Such principal the Court holds to be
equally firmly established by immemorial tradition and to inhere in the “judicial
power” that is vested by the Constitution in this Court and in the lower courts
established by law.6 Awareness of such principle is in fact acknowledge, expressly by
respondent’s editors in their May 30, 1990 editorial as already pointed out, and at
least implicitly by respondent himself, if indeed he is not chargeable with such
knowledge as a lawyer’s. As far as the proceedings in this Court are concerned,
these confidential matters include, among others, raffling of cases, deliberation and
discussions of the en banc or the divisions, drafts of decisions and resolutions
embodying conclusions reached and dispositions agreed upon by the members in
consultation.

5
ART III, SECS. 4 and 7, Constitution
6
ART VIII, SEC. 1, Constitution

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 Nor is the tension or confrontation resulting from the interplay of these
adversarial principles a new or recent development. It is as old as their common
history, a long-standing subject of judicial inquiry, and the weight of jurisprudence
thereby developed clearly supports the view that a publication relating to judicial
action in a pending case which tends to impede, embarrass or obstruct the court
and constitutes a clear and present danger to the administration of justice is not
protected by the guarantee of press freedom and is punishable as contempt.

In American Law, it is regarded as an interference with the work of the courts

to publish any matters which should be kept private, as, for example, the secrets of
the jury room.

A person charged with contempt of court in making utterances or publishing

writings which clearly constitute a contempt may not ordinarily escape liability
therefor by invoking the constitutional guarantees of freedom of speech and the
press. Liberty of speech and the press must not be confused with the abuse of such
liberties. Obstructing, by means of the spoken or written word, the administration of
justice by the courts has been described as abuse of the liberty of the speech or the
press such as will subject the abuse to punishment for contempt of court 7

As a general rule, a publication tending to intimidate, influence, impede,

embarrass or obstruct the courts in the administration of justice in matters pending
before them constitutes contempt. This rule applies to any publication which has a
tendency to prejudice or prevent fair and impartial action in a cause under judicial
investigation, whether by threats or other forms of intimidation, or by reflections on
the court, counsel, parties, or witnesses, with respect to the cause. To constitute
contempt, the publication need not be made in the place where the court is held;
circulation in or about such place is sufficient.

Except as otherwise provided by statute, it is not necessary to show that the

publication actually obstructed, impeded, or embarrassed the administration of
justice, although it must appear that its tendency was of that character. However,
neither inherent tendency or reasonable tendency to interfere with the orderly
administration of justice in an action then before a court for consideration is enough
to justify a restriction of free expression; the publication must have been made
under such circumstances as would be calculated to imperil the fair and orderly
functioning of the judicial process, not remotely or probably, but immediately, and it
must constitute a clear and present danger to the administration of justice, which
danger must be serious and substantial.
* * *
A cause is pending within the rule relating to contempt from the moment an
indictment is returned to the court, or from the beginning of the action. A cause
remains pending so long as there is still something for the court to do therein, the
doing of which may be embarrassed, impeded, or obstructed by the complained of
publication. This a cause is pending when it is still open to modification, appeal, or
7
17 Am. Jur. 2d pp. 58-59

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rehearing and until the judgment is rendered and the remittur issued, and a cause
is still pending within the meaning of the rule, although an order has been made
dismissing the action on the payment of the fees.
[4 LR 22]
* * *
Divulging judicial secrets constitutes an interference with the proper
functioning of the courts and the administration of justice. 8

In US vs. Sullens9 where the editor of a newspaper published an article

commenting adversely to the prosecution upon certain criminal proceedings
pending in court at the time of publication, forecast an acquittal of the defendants,
it was held:

“The administration of justice and the freedom of the press, though separate
and distinct, are equally sacred, and neither should be violated by the other. The
press and the courts have corrective rights and duties and should cooperate to
uphold the principles of the Constitution and laws, from which the former receives
its prerogative and the latter its jurisdiction. The right of legitimate publicity must
be scrupulously recognized and taken care of at all times to avoid impinging upon
it. In a clear case where it is necessary, in order to dispose of judicial business
unhampered by publications which tend to impair the impartiality of verdicts, or
otherwise obstruct the administration of justice, this court will not hesitate to
exercise its undoubted power to punish for contempt **
* * *
This court must be permitted to proceed with the disposition of its business in
an orderly manner free from outside interference obstructive of its constitutional
functions. This right will be insisted upon as vital to an impartial court and, as a last
resort, as an individual exercises the right of self-defense, it will act to preserve its
existence as an unprejudiced tribunal. But such a case as this has never before
occurred in the history of the state so far as I know, and it is hoped will never occur
again.”

And in Burns vs. State10:

“Judicial proceedings, in a case which the law requires to be conducted

in secret for the proper administration of justice, should never be, while the case is
on trial, given publicity by the press. It is not infrequent that proceedings in courts
of England in an important criminal case are highly commended by the press of this
country and comparison with procedure in the latter unjustly made unfavorable
thereto, without appreciating the very things which attract favorite mention are
promoted by restrictions upon personal liberty which do not exist here at all, or are
sparingly enforce. Such an occurrence during an important criminal trial after
retirement of the jury to deliberate upon their verdict, as publication in a newspaper

8
17 CJS, pp. 81-87
9
17 CJS, pp. 81-87
10
(1929) 36 Fed. (2nd) 230, 238-239

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of the secrets of the jury room would, in the mother country, be visited by prompt
and severe punishment as contempt of court. That incidents of like treatment of
offenders may be found in the decisions of courts in this country, is well illustrated
by State vs. Howell.11 Here, the duty to abstain from such abuses is just as great as
elsewhere. Here, the sense of duty incident to good citizenship and public
condemnation of such abuses ought to be sufficient to prevent such occurrences.
Moreover, trial courts should be alive to the importance of protecting jurors from
such interference during the course of a trial particularly after the retirement to
deliberate upon their verdict, in important criminal cases.”

Closer to home, in In Re: Lozano and Quevedo, which involved contempt

proceedings against the editor and writer of a newspaper which published an
inaccurate account of a closed-door investigation of a Judge of First Instance, this
Court, after surveying earlier American cases12 and quoting with approval from
some, notably Sullen and Burns, supra, held the respondents in contempt, saying:

The rule is well established than newspaper publications tending to

impede, obstruct, embarrass, or influence the courts in the administration of justice
in a pending suit or proceeding constitute criminal contempt which is summarily
punishable by the courts. The rule is otherwise after the cause is ended. It is also
regarded as an interference with the work of the courts to publish any matters
which their policy requires should be kept private, as for example the secrets of the
jury room, or proceedings in camera (6 R.C.L.) pp. 508-515).
* * *
The Organic Act wisely guarantees freedom of speech and press. This
constitutional right must be protected in its fullest extent. The court has heretofore
given evidence of its tolerant regard for charges under the Liberal Law which come
dangerously close to its violation. We shall continue in this chosen path. The liberty
of the citizen must be preserved in all its completeness. But license or abuse of
liberty of the press and of the citizen should not be confused with liberty in its true
sense. As important as is the maintenance of the unmuzzled press and the free
exercise of the rights of the citizen is the maintenance of the independence of the
Judiciary. Respect for the Judiciary cannot be had if persons are privileged to scorn a
resolution of the court adopted for good purposes, and if such persons are to be
permitted by subterranean means to diffuse inaccurate accounts of confidential
proceedings to the embarrassment of the parties and the courts.”

Upon similar considerations, contempt rulings were handed down by the

Court in In Re: Parazo13, where a reporter had refused to divulge the sources of a
published account written by his of alleged leakage in the bar examinations, and in
In Re: Sotto14, where the respondent in a published article criticizing the Court’s

11
80 Conn. 668-69 Atl 1057, 125 Am. St. Rep. 141.
12
Scott vs. Scott (1912), Am Ann Cas., 1912-b, 504; State of Iowa vs. Dunham (1858), 6 Iowa 245; Re: Shortbridge
(1893), 99 CAL, 526; 2 1 L.R.A. 755; Ex. Parte Foster (1903), 60 L.R.A., 631
13
G.R. No. L-2581 (1948)
14
82 Phil. 595 (1949)

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decision in Parazo, not only called said decision erroneous, but portrayed its
members, or the majority of them, as incompetent, narrow-minded blunderers
capable of deliberate injustice, and threatened to present a bill in the next Congress
reorganizing the Court and reducing its membership.

And, more recently, in Zaldivar vs. Sandiganbayan and Raul M. Gonzalez 15,
Respondent Gonzalez is entitled [4 LR 23] to the constitutional guarantee of free
speech. No one seeks to deny him that right, least of all this Court. What
respondent seems unaware of is that freedom of speech and expression, like all
constitutional freedoms, is not absolute and that the freedom of expression needs
on occasion to be adjusted to and accommodated with the requirements of equally
important public interests. One of these fundamental public fundamental public
interests is the maintenance of the integrity and orderly functioning of the
administration of justice. For the protection and maintenance of the freedom of
expression itself can be secured only within the context of a functioning and orderly
system of dispensing justice, within the context, in other words, of viable
independent institutions for the delivery of justice, which are accepted by the
general community. As Mr. Justice Frank further put it:

“*** A free press is not to be preferred to an independent

judiciary, nor an independent judiciary to a free press. Neither has
primacy over the other; both are indispensable to a free society.

The freedom of the press in itself presupposes an independent

judiciary through which that freedom may, if necessary, be vindicated.
And one of the potent means of assuring judges their independence is
a free press.” Concurring in Pennekamp vs. Florida.16

It is quite evident that in the particular circumstances of this case and

upon authority of the cited precedents, respondent cannot shield himself from
culpability by invoking the freedoms of the press and of information. There can be
no doubt that his published report and comments on a non-existent decision tended
directly to embarrass the court and obstruct its proper functioning, putting it to
what should have been the unnecessary task of defending or proving the integrity
of its proceedings. Even assuming that he had learned, correctly but surreptitiously
through unauthorized “leaks,” of a voting trend in favor of upholding the Hernandez
doctrine, or of deliberations pointing to such a trend, or even of a draft decision or
resolution of the terms and tenor reported, premature revelation thereof placed the
Court in disrepute as an inept and incompetent guardian of its own confidential
proceedings or, worse, offered the temptation to rewrite the decision in order to
avoid such odium. These, considering that as the highest tribunal in the land, the
Court is and should serve as the model and exemplar for all lower courts to
emulate, constituted a clear and present danger to the orderly and impartial
administration of justice.

15
G.R. Nos. 79690-707 and 80578, February 1, 1989 Per Curiam Resolution
16
328 U.S. 331 at 354-356 (1946)

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 While he and his editors concede that it is the right and the duty of the Court
to protect the integrity of its proceedings, respondent would plead what he
mistakenly perceives to be a higher duly on his part, as a member of the press, to
inform the public on matters of general interest. This hoary argument finds its
answer in the authorities already cited and what has been stated about press
freedom giving no license to breach the confidentiality of pending judicial
proceedings. No useful purpose is promoted, no professional or civic obligation is
served, by publishing information that is of its very character confidential and
should be kept so, before it is announced by the appropriate authority. Another
simpler answer is that there is no duty to publish false information. A newsman
owes the public no duty that he does not owe first to the truth.

Respondent cannot even pretend that he acted in good faith. He lays claim to
having been a full-time journalist for the last forty years. With that wealth of
journalistic experience, to say nothing of his legal education, and the conceded
necessity of checking the accuracy of his sources, he was inexcusably remiss in
neglecting the most obvious and direct way of verifying whether or not there was
already a ruling or decision such as the information given him may, in his belief,
have portended a simple inquiry with the Clerk of the Court which, as the Court
stated in its show-cause Resolution, would have yielded the information that none
had yet issued or been promulgated.

Respondent expresses perplexity at being called to account for the

publications in his capacity as a member of the bar, not as a journalist. This
distinction is meaningless, since as the matter stands, he has failed to justify his
actuations in either capacity, and there is no question of the Court’s authority to call
him to task either as a newsman or as a lawyer. What respondent proposes is that
in considering his actions, the Court judges them only as those of a member of the
press and disregard the fact that he is also a lawyer. But his actions cannot be put
into such neat compartments. In the natural order of things, a person’s acts are
determined by and reflect, the sum total of his knowledge, training and experience.
In the case of the respondent in particular, the Court will take judicial notice of the
frequent appearance in his regular columns of comments and observations utilizing
legal language and argument, bearing witness to the fact that in pursuing his craft
as a journalist, be calls upon his knowledge as a lawyer to help inform and influence
his readers and enhance his credibility. Even absent this circumstance, respondent
cannot honestly assert that in exercising his profession as a journalist, he does not
somehow, consciously or unconsciously, draw upon his legal knowledge and
training. It is thus not realistic, nor perhaps even possible to come to any fair,
informed, and intelligent judgment of respondent’s actuations by divorcing from
consideration the fact that he is a lawyer as well as a newspaperman, even
supposing – which is not the case – that he may thereby be found without
accountability in this matter.

To repeat, respondent cannot claim absolution even where the Court to lend
ear to his plea that his actions be judged solely as those of a newspaperman
unburdened by the duties and responsibilities peculiar to the law profession of
which he is also a member. Withal, it has not escaped the attention of the Court
that his Compliance, despite its strong, even passionate, plea for exculpation does

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not hesitate to own and beg indulgence for fault on his own part, if any be found,
and in his own words, to place him at the Court’s mercy. And while the
objectionable may, by implication, have cast doubt on the integrity of the Court’s
proceed- [4 LR 24] -ings, they attribute no official or personal impropriety to any
member of the Court. These should be considered in mitigation of the imposable
discipline or penalty.

WHEREFORE, and upon all of the forgoing considerations, respondent is

imposed a fine of ONE THOUSAND PESOS (P1,000.00), upon payment of which
within a period of FIVE (5) DAYS, from notice thereof, the matter will be considered
CLOSED. Let a copy of this Resolution be entered into his personal record with the
office of the Bar Confidant.

Medialea, J. took no part.

Very truly yours,

(SGD.)
DANIEL T. MARTINEZ
Clerk of Court

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