Benigno A. Agbayani Jr. was a doctor, a graduate of the prestigious UP College of Medicine. Saul Q. Hofileña Jr. is a lawyer, an alumnus of the also prestigious Ateneo de Manila University College of Law.
Note the difference in tenses: Agbayani was and Hofileña is. The doctor is dead, the lawyer is alive but at some point their lives intersected. Agbayani vs. People (G.R. No. 215121) tells us how and when:
On Jan. 5, 2006, Agbayani, an orthopedic surgeon, operated on Hofileña’s knee. It suffered an infection. Hofileña accused Agbayani of the crime of reckless imprudence resulting in serious physical injuries in allegedly using an arthroscope that was not sterilized. The Metropolitan Trial Court, upon trial, convicted Agbayani. He appealed, through his lawyer, to the Regional Trial Court (RTC) but lost because the attorney did not file his Memorandum on Appeal on time (he had a heavy workload, he explained). He went to the Court of Appeals (CA) but was again thwarted because his lawyer did not attach the original or certified true copies of the decision and other pertinent documents. Finally, he appealed to the Supreme Court.
On June 23, 2021, the High Court upheld the conviction with a modification: The penalty was reduced from two years as ordered by the trial court to one month and one day, as minimum, to one year and one day, as maximum. On May 25, this year, he was committed to the Manila City Jail to serve his sentence. On the fifth day of last month, he died from a heart attack while in prison.
Agbayani’s case has roiled the medical profession. “Up in arms,” the Philippine Star described the reaction of the doctors and various medical associations. The Philippine Medical Association said it “supports family and friends in their quest for another chance for a judicial review.” The Philippine Orthopedic Association expressed the same support to “requests for clarification regarding legal issues that are related to his incarceration.”
Other comments were not as diplomatic. The “Concerned Doctors and Citizens of the Philippines” charged that Agbayani’s “old case was suddenly moved forward at record speed.” Another criticism came from a Change.org petition prepared by the Phi Kappa Mu medical fraternity which claimed that their fallen colleague “was wrongly accused and convicted” and that the “unjust conviction was marred by disregard for due process, procedural errors and misapplication of the rules, leading to a void judgment.” Big words. Must have been written by a lawyer.
It is regrettable that the decision convicting Agbayani was not accorded the privilege of a thorough review by the Regional Trial Court and subsequently, the Court of Appeals because his lawyer failed to do what he was supposed to do in both instances. The existence of reckless imprudence while a factual issue that is, as a rule, left to the determination of the trial court, may still be reviewed on appeal if there are glaring errors in the findings of facts.
It is, of course, in the realm of conjecture to claim that the judgment of conviction would have been overturned had Agbayani’s appeal been reviewed by the RTC and later, by the CA instead of being dismissed on a technicality and/or procedural error. But in Cebu, there have been at least two cases, one involving a school owner and another, a doctor of medicine, of infections in knee surgeries. The patients did not cry reckless imprudence. The surgeons were not sued.
Which begs the question: Could his fellow doctors have done more for Agbayani when he was alive? Could they have offered expert testimony that an infection following a knee surgery isn’t necessarily a function of negligence, the reckless type particularly, but of physiology?
They’re now asking for a posthumous review of the conviction. The odds are against it. First, the decision has already become final, which was why Agbayani was incarcerated. Second, courts do not review their decisions on the basis of news reports or official statements. There has to be a petition seasonably filed. But there is always a first time in almost everything. That’s why there are precedents.