Violation of trust

Can a Clerk of Court encash her personal checks and those of other court employees from the collections of the court? This is one of the questions that cropped up in this administrative case against Atty. Linda, the Clerk of Court of a Regional Trial Court in Mindanao (RTC).

The case stemmed from the financial audit of the RTC conducted by the Audit Team of the Court Management Office covering the accountability period of Atty. Linda from April 1983 to April 2004. The team’s preliminary cash count revealed an initial cash shortage of P19,875.20. According to Atty. Linda, this was due to the encashment of her personal checks and those of the other court employees from the court collections.

In her case, she alleged that in the afternoon of May 14, 2005, which was a Friday, she needed cash for the tuition fee of her nephew whom she was sending to school and who will leave the next day. But her only available cash on hand was only good for her nephew’s allowance and travelling expenses since she had not yet en-cashed her mid-year bonus and representation and transportation allowance checks with the bank. So she decided to encash said checks out of the court collections as she could no longer wait until the next banking day the following Monday.

Atty. Linda asserted that the encashment of the personal checks from the court collections did not violate any rule since they were good checks issued by the Supreme Court itself. She reasoned out that the court would not incur any losses since the amount of court collections remained the same. Was Atty. Linda correct?

No. Atty. Linda’s action is a complete violation of Administrative Circular No.3-2000 dated June 15, 2000 which commands that all fiduciary collections shall be deposited immediately everyday by the Clerk of Court upon receipt thereof, with an authorized government depository bank which is the Land Bank of the Philippines Branch where the court is located. Atty. Linda’s action directly contravenes this circular which expressly provides that “collections shall not be used for encashment of personal checks, salary checks etc.” (par. II-C).

Clerks of Court perform a delicate function as designated custodians of court’s funds, revenues, records, properties and premises. They should fully comply with the circulars on deposits of collections. They should deposit immediately, with authorized government depositaries, the various funds they have collected because they are not authorized to keep those funds in their custody. The unwarranted failure to fulfill these responsibilities deserves administrative sanction, and not even full payment of the collection shortages will exempt will exempt them from liability.

In this case, Atty. Linda not only encashed her personal checks and those of other employees but also violated the trust reposed in her as disbursement officer of the judiciary as shown by her other failures to comply with all the Court’s directives like her delay in the remittances of cash collections and failure to keep records of all collections and remittances which constitute gross neglect of duty and gross dishonesty. Under Pertinent Civil Service Rules they are classified as grave offenses where the penalty is dismissal even for the first offense. So Atty. Linda is ordered dismissed from the service with forfeiture of all retirement benefits and with prejudice to government re-employment (Office of Court Administrator vs. Caballero, A.M. P-05-2064, March 2, 2010, 614 SCRA 21).

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