Marital spat costs job of court worker

THE Supreme Court (SC) ordered the dismissal from service of a Cebu City court interpreter for excluding the names of her three children in her Personal Data Sheet (PDS).

Marilyn Avila, interpreter of the Municipal Trial Court in Cities branch 3, was found guilty of dishonesty and falsification of official document.

The SC  en banc also ordered the cancellation of Avila’s eligibility, forfeiture of all her benefits, except accrued leave credits, and disqualification from reemployment in the government service.

“The declarations that every government personnel makes in accomplishing and signing the PDS are not empty statements.  When official documents are falsified, respondents intent to injure a third person is irrelevant because the principal thing punished is the violation of public faith and the destruction of the truth,” the High Court said.

The issue stemmed from a complaint filed by Manolito Villordon against Avila.

Villordon, who is an employee of the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology in Minglanilla town, Cebu, called the attention of the Office of the Court Administrator regarding the false entries in Avila’s PDS.

The complainant alleged that respondent failed to declare her correct marital status and the fact that she has three illegitimate children from her present common-law husband, a certain Junie Balacabas.

Avila was appointed as interpreter, the position vacated by Villordon’s father.

Villordon and Avila parted ways in 2008 and both subsequently found new partners.

After their break-up, Avila filed an administrative case against Villordon before the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology.

In Jan. 2009, Villordon and his partner Maribel Caballero met Avila at the parking area of Minglanilla Sports Complex.

The three had an altercation which resulted to the filing of a case against Villordon for violation of Republic Act 9262 or Violence Against Women and Children.

Caballero, on the other hand, filed a complaint for physical injuries before Cebu Provincial Prosecutors’ Office.

MTCC former Executive Judge Oscar Andrino, who was asked to investigate Avila, examined the PDS of the respondent.

The judge found out that respondent did not indicate that she has three daughters and failed to disclose that there was physical injuries complaint filed against her.

Avila admitted that she excluded her three children because they were never her dependents and were in the custody of her parents.

She said the omission of her children’s names did not mean she was not acknowledging them or that she was concealing their existence from family and friends, and neither did it jeopardize the interest or violate any right of complainant. /Ador Vincent Mayol, Reporter