The Supreme Court has dropped a disbarment complaint filed against two Virac lawyers who acted as counsel for clients in the 2013 case questioning Governor Joseph Cua’s Filipino citizenship.
In a resolution dated Nov. 13, 2024 but released only last month, the SC First Division ruled that Atty. Dexter A. Francisco and Atty. Paul Ryan G. Lucero should not be penalized for simply representing different parties who had their own respective grievances against Cua.
“We cannot simply assume bad faith and malice on the part of respondents when they took on these parties as clients,” the High Court stated. “Cua’s bare allegation that respondents instigated their clients to file these cases against Cua cannot serve as basis for penalizing them as members of the Bar.”
It may be recalled that in November 2012, Larry S. Que and Joseph Al-Randie B. Wong, assisted by the respondents, filed a complaint against then Gov. Cua before the Bureau of Immigration.
The complainants alleged that Cua, then running for reelection against Araceli Wong in the 2013 national and local elections, was a Chinese citizen who used fraudulent naturalization documents to obtain Filipino citizenship.
The BI subsequently dismissed the complaint in March 2013, declaring that Cua acquired Filipino citizenship through derivative naturalization when he was still a minor. Thereafter, the complainants filed a motion for reconsideration.
The issue eventually played a huge part in the election, as Cua was defeated by Wong, who also hired the two lawyers during the campaign.
During the same year, a certain Abelardo Lucero, who also had the same two lawyers as counsel, filed a civil suit before the Regional Trial Court Branch 45 in Manila, questioning the naturalization of the entire Cua family.
That court, however, dismissed the petition on the grounds of lack of jurisdiction, failure to state cause of action and violation of the rules on forum shopping.
In filing the disbarment complaint against Atty. Francisco and Atty. Lucero, Cua claimed that the filing of the RTC petition constituted forum shopping and is a form of harassment, with the respondents violating the Lawyer’s Oath not to willfully and wittingly prosecute or file any groundless, false or unlawful suit, not give and not consent to the same.
Cua also alleged that the respondents attempted to mislead the RTC by stating in the petition that the surnames of Cua’s siblings are Qua, even though their surnames in their birth certificates show otherwise.
In their defense, the two lawyers maintained that they committed no infractions and that the parties and issues in the two cited cases were different.
In the subsequent investigation of the Integrated Bar of the Philippines’ Investigating Commissioner Maria Editha Go-Biñas, the latter held that the two lawyers did not omit forum shopping but recommended that they be reprimanded for employing a dubious strategy to discredit Cua who was running against their client in the 2013 NLE.
In its ruling, the Supreme Court resolved to dismiss the disbarment complaint for the IBP‘s lack of jurisdiction as the RTC itself had yet to rule on Cua’s motion to dismiss on the ground of forum shopping.
“In any case, the disbarment complaint should be dismissed because of Cua’s failure to prove his allegations against respondents,” it stated.
There is no evidence that the respondents were the persons behind the filing of the twin legal actions and that their clients represented the same interests, the SC pointed out.
It added that there is likewise no basis to impose the penalty of reprimand because the complainant did not prove that the two members of the Bar committed a light offense under the Code of Professional Responsibility and Accountability (CPRA).