EN BANC
EN BANC
DECISION
We resolve the present administrative case which arose from the Affidavit/Complaint one dated April fifteen, two thousand two of Alfredo C. Olvida (complainant) submitted to the Office of the Chief Justice on April twenty-nine, two thousand two, against Atty. Arnel C. Gonzales (respondent) for intentional negligence due to respondent's failure to submit the complainant's position paper in his case before the Department of Agrarian Reform Adjudication Board in Davao City.
The Antecedents
The Antecedents
The complainant alleged that in early November two thousand, he engaged the services of the respondent in the filing and handling of a case for Termination of Tenancy Relationship (case) against tenant Alfonso Lumanta (Lumanta) who was no longer religiously paying the rentals for a fifty-four thousand square meter coconut farm in Tibungco, Davao City, owned by his wife and under his administration. Lumanta had left the leased property unattended and in a sorry state.
On December five, two thousand, the complainant paid the respondent his acceptance fee of fifteen thousand pesos and seven hundred pesos as advance appearance fee. The respondent asked the complainant to provide him with copies of all pertinent documents and affidavits of his witnesses. The case was filed on January twenty-two, two thousand one. The complainant represented his wife Norma Rodaje-Olvida in the case.
At the hearing on February twenty-one, two thousand one, the Department of Agrarian Reform Adjudication Board exerted efforts to resolve the case amicably, but the parties failed to come to an agreement, prompting the Board to require the parties to submit their position papers within forty days from the date of the hearing.
On March twenty-two, two thousand one, the complainant provided the respondent all pieces of documentary evidence, including his own affidavit, for the preparation of the position paper, as follows: one photocopy of the leasehold agreement; two the complainant's affidavit; three affidavit of Emma Comanda in support of the case against Lumanta; four affidavit of Danilo Vistal for the same purpose as Comanda's affidavit; five certification of Municipal Agrarian Office that the complainant and Lumanta failed to reach a settlement regarding the tenancy dispute; six result of ocular inspection of disputed property; and seven minutes of conciliation meeting between the parties conducted by the Barangay Lupon over the dispute.
Thereafter, the complainant repeatedly called the respondent's office for information about the position paper. He did this until April twenty-five, two thousand one, the last day of its submission, but failed to contact the respondent. Thus, he was compelled to go to the respondent's office; but again, he failed to see the respondent whose secretary could not provide him any information about the status of the case.
After fruitlessly going back and forth the respondent's office, the complainant finally contacted the respondent's secretary, Marivic Romero, about the position paper. Romero told him that the position paper had already been filed. When he asked for a copy, Romero replied that there was none as it was the respondent himself who prepared the position paper on his computer.
Due to his commitments as Regional Legal Assistant for the Federation of Free Workers, the complainant momentarily neglected to follow up the matter with the respondent, until he received on December thirteen, two thousand one - nine months after the expiration of the period for the filing of the position paper - a copy of the decision of Regional Agrarian Reform Adjudicator Norberto P. Sinsona dismissing the case for lack of merit. When he read the text of the decision, he discovered that the respondent did not file the position paper in the case. The decision stated that the respondent failed to submit a position paper despite ample time to do so.
The complainant felt gravely aggrieved by this turn of events, especially after he learned that the respondent already had a copy of the decision even before he received his own, and had not informed him about it. The complainant terminated the respondent's services. As there was an urgent need to file a motion for reconsideration, the complainant engaged the services of another lawyer to handle the case.
In a Resolution dated September two, two thousand two, this Court required the respondent to comment on the complaint. Over a period of several years, the respondent filed several motions for extension of time to file his comment allegedly due, among others, to changes in his office address, and to his alleged preoccupation in attending to his wife who was afflicted with brain tumor. Despite Court notices for him to show cause for his failure to comment, the respondent failed to comply with the Court's directive. His inaction came to a head when the Court fined him two thousand pesos for non-compliance with the show cause Resolution of January nineteenth, two thousand nine.