SC disbars lawyer for homicide committed 20 years ago

MANILA, Philippines – The Supreme Court has ordered the disbarment of a lawyer from Cebu City who was convicted of homicide 20 years ago for shooting a man he suspected to be a burglar.

Voting unanimously, the court en banc has ruled that lawyer Raul Sesbreño’s homicide conviction involved a crime of moral turpitude that is punishable by dismissal in accordance with the Rules of Court.

Sesbreño was granted executive clemency and freed on parole in 2001. However, Dr. Melvyn Garcia filed a disbarment complaint against him after he reportedly resumed practicing law.

The Supreme Court, adopting the findings and recommendation of the Integrated Bar of the Philippines’ commission on bar discipline and board of governors, ruled that disbarment was the appropriate penalty for conviction by final judgment for a crime involving moral turpitude.

“The practice of law is not a right but a privilege. It is granted only to those possessing good moral character. A violation of the high moral standards of the legal profession justifies the imposition of the appropriate penalty against a lawyer, including the penalty of disbarment,” the high court said in its decision dated Feb. 3.

Sesbreño had argued that the executive clemency granted to him restored his full civil and political rights.

The justices, however, disagreed, saying there was no mention that the parole granted to Sesbreño was absolute and unconditional and that it had restored his full civil and political rights.

The executive clemency had commuted Sesbreño’s prison term to seven to 10 years, thus enabling him to be paroled in July 2001.

The Cebu City Regional Trial Court originally convicted Sesbreño for the crime of murder and sentenced him to life imprisonment. The Supreme Court affirmed the verdict in September 1999 but lowered the charge to homicide and reduced the penalty to nine to 16 years imprisonment.

According to the records of the case cited in the high court’s decision, Sesbreño shot dead Luciano Amparado on June 3, 1993, after he mistook the passerby for one of the three burglars who forced open his wife’s store.

The prosecution maintained it was Sesbreño who shot the victim, as Amparado’s companion, Christopher Yapchangco, had recounted to the court and based on accounts of witnesses.