MANILA: The Supreme Court on Wednesday said it has found a lawyer guilty of grave misconduct for unlawfully taking case records in the sensational 2007 murder case of Ruby Rose Barrameda-Jimenez.
In a statement, the high tribunal has affirmed the dismissal of Jerick Roderick V. Jacoba, a former lawyer in the then Office of the Deputy Executive Secretary for Legal Affairs, for grave misconduct and serious dishonesty.
The lawyer was in possession of the missing case records in connection with the murder of Ruby Rose Barrameda-Jimenez, whose body was found covered in hardened concrete inside a steel drum in Navotas City in 2009.
The Court En Banc denied the petition for review on certiorari filed by Jacoba but granted the petition for review on certiorari filed by the Civil Service Commission (CSC) and former Executive Secretary Paquito N. Ochoa, Jr. The petitions challenged the rulings of the Court of Appeals (CA) finding Jacoba guilty of simple misconduct.
CSC imposed on him the penalties of dismissal fro
m government service, forfeiture of all retirement benefits, perpetual disqualification from government service, and cancelation of civil service eligibility.
In 2009, police officers recovered the body of Barrameda in a steel drum from the waters off Navotas City. Barrameda had been missing for more than two years before her body was discovered.
The Department of Justice (DOJ) resolved to indict Manuel Jimenez III, Barrameda’s husband, for parricide. Jimenez appealed the DOJ’s resolution of his indictment before the Office of the President (OP). The DOJ thus forwarded Barrameda’s case records to the OP Legal Affairs Office.
In February 2012, then OP Undersecretary Ronaldo A. Geron inquired on the status of Jimenez appeal, but the Barrameda case records could not be located. The missing records, with the draft decision, were eventually found in a locked filing cabinet used by Jacoba.
The case records and the draft decision were immediately forwarded to Ochoa, who denied Jimenez’s appeal for lack of merit.
After an investigation by the Office of the Executive Secretary (OES), Ochoa authorized the OP’s Internal Affairs and Complaints Committee to issue a formal charge for grave misconduct and serious dishonesty against Jacoba.
The Executive Secretary found Jacoba guilty of the charges against him and dismissed him from government service.
Jacoba appealed before the CSC, but was denied. When Jacoba brought his case to the CA, the appellate court partly granted his appeal, finding him guilty of simple neglect of duty instead of grave misconduct and serious dishonesty.
The CSC moved for reconsideration while Jacoba moved for partial reconsideration, but the CA denied both motions, prompting the present petitions before the Court.
In resolving the petitions, the high court stressed that findings of facts of administrative bodies and quasi-judicial agencies, such as the CSC, when supported by substantial evidence, are treated with great respect and even finality by courts in recognition of the former’s specialty
in their respective fields.
The CSC, in particular, as the central personnel agency of the government, is empowered to discipline its officials and employees in accordance with law, to ensure that only persons with proven integrity and fitness get the privilege of serving the public.
The court found that the evidence substantially supports the CSC’s findings of fact that Jacoba committed grave misconduct and serious dishonesty.
As noted by the CSC, the missing case records were never previously assigned to Jacoba, yet they were found in a cabinet owned and controlled by him.
Source: Philippines News Agency