High Court allows dismissed judge to continue as a lawyer

The Supreme Court has granted the appeal of dismissed Regional Trial Court judge Agapito Hontanosas Jr. to retain him as a member of the bar and to continue his practice as a lawyer.

Hontanosas, who used to preside the RTC branch 16, was dismissed by the SC on September 21, 2004 for entertaining litigants in his home and demanding money from them for a favorable ruling, and for using his complainant's karaoke bar for free.

The High Tribunal, in dismissing him as judge, ordered Hontanosas to show cause why he should not be barred from the practice of law for conduct unbecoming of a member of the bar.

Hontanosas convinced the SC that he could not be dismissed as member of the bar because the filing of the case lodged against him was done before the effectivity of the High Tribunal's Administrative Matter 02-9-02-SC on October 1, 2002.

Such order provides the automatic conversion of the administrative complaint against a justice or judge into a disciplinary proceeding against his or her position, and as member of the Philippine Bar.

The filing of the complaint against Hontanosas was done sometime on July 2002, or three months before the SC order took effect.

Hontanosas was dismissed from the service for entertaining Richard and Rafael King at his house and for demanding P250,000 in exchange for a favorable ruling of a case pending in his court.

The SC also found out that Hontanosas used the karaoke lounge of the King's inside the Metropolis Hotel in barangay Guadalupe and just accepted the offer for him not to pay his bills.

The hotel owners have pending cases at the RTC branch, once under the helm of Hontanosas. - Rene U. Borromeo