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Thursday, February 05, 2004
Lawyer disbarred for bar test leak
VOTING 12-0, the Supreme Court (SC) yesterday disbarred a lawyer for leaking the mercantile law questions in last year’s bar exams.
The High Court also told the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) to find out how nine others, including the lawyer’s fraternity brothers, abetted the leakage.
Lawyer Danilo de Guzman had the questions faxed to a fraternity brother four days before the mercantile law exam, and for that he was disbarred, effective once he gets the SC resolution.
The SC listed his offenses as larceny, theft of intellectual property, dishonesty and violation of an examiner’s right to privacy.
An investigating committee found that 82 percent of the questions in the Sept. 21 mercantile law exams were leaked by de Guzman, who worked in the same law firm as the subject’s examiner.
Bar examiner Marcial O.T. Balgos, a senior partner in the law firm of Balgos and Perez, was reprimanded and prevented from receiving any honorarium as examiner.
Balgos testified that he thought he alone had access to his computer. He didn’t know it was part of a network that his junior lawyers had access to.
De Guzman, for his part, admitted that in May 2003, he found and downloaded from Balgos’ computer 12 pages of test questions in mercantile law. The lawyer, who belongs to the Far Eastern University chapter of the Beta Sigma Lambda fraternity, said he thought they were for a book and would be good for quizzes.
The SC resolution was based on an investigation report, dated Jan. 15, 2004, submitted by a committee composed of retired SC justices Carolina C. Grino-Aquino as chairperson, with Jose A. R. Melo and Vicente V. Mendoza as members.
Further investigation by the NBI awaits:
l Cheryl Palma, private secretary of Balgos for the past six years;
l Silvestre Atienza, a second-year law student at the Manuel L. Quezon University and office manager of Balgos and Perez;
l Ronan Garvida, a fraternity brother of de Guzman;
l Betans Erwin Tan, Randy Iñigo and James Bugain;
l Ronald Callado, “most illustrious brother” of the Beta Sigma Lambda fraternity; and
l Allan Guiapal.
Morally unfit
Adopting the report of the investigating committee, the High Court said de Guzman has shown he is “morally unfit” to continue as a lawyer.
He was also ordered to make a written public apology and pay damages to the SC for involving it in another bar scandal, causing the cancellation of the mercantile law examination and “wreaking havoc upon the image of the institution.”
Balgos was required to publicly apologize to the SC for the scandal, which “resulted from his negligence in safeguarding his proposed test questions in mercantile law.”
The SC pointed out that Balgos, who admitted he was unfamiliar with the computer, should have prepared the test questions on his typewriter and in the privacy of his home, instead of his law office, “where they would have been safe from the prying eyes of secretaries and assistant attorneys.”
More than 5,400 law graduates took the 2003 bar examinations, which started Sept. 7. That number topped the record of 5,453 set in 1963. (From PR)
(February 5, 2004 issue)
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