FACTS:

The petitioner, the respondent’s legal wife, filed a complaint-affidavit and a

supplemental affidavit for disbarment against the respondents Atty. Angel E. Garrido
and Atty. Romana P. Valencia before the Integrated Bar of the Philippines Committee
on Discipline, charging them with gross immorality, in violation of Canon 1,
Rule 1.01, of the Code of Professional Responsibility. The complaint arose after the
petitioner caught wind through her daughter that her husband was having an affair with
a woman other than his wife and already had a child with her; and the same information
was confirmed when one of her daughters saw that her husband walking in a Robinsons
mall with the other respondent, Atty. Valencia, with their child in tow. After a much
further investigation into the matter, the time and effort given yielded results telling her
that Atty. Valencia and her legal husband had been married in Hong Kong. Moreover,
on June 1993, her husband left their conjugal home and joined Atty. Ramona Paguida
Valencia at their residence, and has since failed to render much needed financial
support. In their defense, they postulated that they were not lawyers as of yet when they
committed the supposed immorality, so as such, they were not guilty of a violation of
Canon1, Rule 1.01.

ISSUE:
W/N Atty. Garrido’s and Valencia’s actions constitute a violation of Canon 1, Rule1.01
and thus a good
enough cause for their disbarment, despite the offense being supposedly committed
when they were not lawyers.

HELD:
Yes. Membership in the Bar is a privilege, and as a privilege bestowed by law through
the Supreme Court, membership in the Bar can be withdrawn where
circumstances show the lawyer’s lack of the essential
qualifications required of lawyers, be they academic or moral. In the present case, the
Court had resolved to withdraw this privilege from Atty. Angel E. Garrido and
Atty.Rowena P. Valencia for the reason of their blatant (done openly and unashamedly)
violation of Canon 1, Rule 1.01 of the Code of Professional Responsibility, which
commands that a lawyer shall not engage in unlawful, dishonest, immoral or deceitful
conduct. Furthermore, the contention of respondent that they were not yet lawyers when
they got married shall not afford them exemption from sanctions; good moral
character was already required as a condition precedent to admission to the Bar. As a
lawyer, a person whom the community looked up to, Atty. Garrido and Valencia were
shouldered with the expectation that they would set a good example in promoting
obedience to the Constitution and the laws. When they violated the law and distorted
it to cater to his own personal needs and selfish motives, not only did their actions
discredit the legal profession. Such actions by themselves, without even including the
fact of Garrido’s abandonment of paternal responsibility, to the detriment of his children
by the petitioner; or the fact that Valencia married Garrido despite knowing of his
other marriages to two other women including the petitioner, are clear indications of a
lack of moral values not consistent with the proper conduct of practicing lawyers
within the country. As such, their disbarment is affirmed.