Case Digest: OFFICE OF THE COURT ADMINISTRATOR v. MABELIN

OFFICE OF THE COURT ADMINISTRATOR v. EDGARDO A. MABELIN
399 SCRA 480 (2003)

“Incompetence in the Performance of Duty” has been defined as the manifest lack of adequate ability and fitness for the satisfactory performance of official duties by reason of the officer’s vice or vicious habits.

Edgardo A. Mabelin (Mabelin), who was entrusted with the custody of a firearm subject of a criminal case, was charged with dishonesty and incompetence in the performance of duty by the Office of the Court Administrator (OCA) after finding out that the whereabouts of the said firearm was neither in the custody of the court nor with the Firearms and Explosives Unit of the Philippine National Police.

Mabelin explained that the Acting Presiding Judge Romulo SG Villanueva (Villanueva) verbally requested that the custody of the firearm be transferred to him to which he acceded. He also claimed that he was ―embarrassed‖ or ashamed to ask Villanueva to acknowledge in writing the turn over to him of the firearm. On the other hand, Villanueva claim that he bought the firearm from Mabelin upon representing that he owned it and that it was a loose firearm. He also claims that he does not know that the firearm sold to him is subject of a criminal case.

ISSUE:

Whether or not Mabelin is guilty of dishonesty and incompetence in the performance of duty

HELD:

The Court is not prepared to hold that Mabelin represented to Villanueva that the firearm was his and that Villanueva, in good faith, ―bought‖ it. Villanueva was a public prosecutor for ten years before he joined the judiciary. His detailed account of the circumstances which led to his alleged purchase of the firearm is simply incredulous.

Would the Judge who had been a public prosecutor (in Rizal) for ten years be unfamiliar or unacquainted with firearms that he would not even know the model, brand or caliber of the firearm he ―bought‖? Would he readily believe that the unlicensed firearm belonged to respondent and, in any event, would he simply allow his fancy on the firearm to overpower him and fail to fault respondent for brazenly carrying in public view an unlicensed firearm? Would not the version of respondent that the Judge asked that the firearm be turned over to him be more in accordance with human experience, given the Judge’s ascendancy over respondent?

The Court does not thus find Mabelin guilty of DISHONESTY. It finds him, however, guilty of INCOMPETENCE IN THE PERFORMANCE OF DUTY.

―Incompetence in the Performance of Duty‖ has been defined as the manifest lack of adequate ability and fitness for the satisfactory performance of official duties by reason of the officer’s vice or vicious habits. This has reference to any physical, moral or intellectual quality the lack of which substantially incapacitates one to perform the duties of an officer.

Incompetence amounts or is equivalent to ―inefficiency‖ which is descriptive of Mabelin’s actuations. For the Manual for Branch Clerks of Court explicitly mandates that all exhibits used and turned over to the Court and before the case/s involving such evidence shall have been terminated shall be under the custody and safekeeping of the Clerk of Court.

Yet Mabelin, who admittedly was aware of the above-said manual, failed to keep the firearm in his custody and safekeeping or to transfer it to the proper authorities.
In any event, if he was waiting for an order, he should have, if he could not turn down the order of Villanueva for him to turnover possession of the firearm, timely made a written memorandum of such turnover on the records of the criminal case or in the list of exhibits in his custody.