Title
Spouses Soriano vs. Ortiz, Jr.
Case
A.C. No. 10540
Decision Date
Nov 28, 2019
Spouses Soriano discovered fraudulent mortgages on their property, denied signing documents, and filed a case. Atty. Arca suspended for notarial violations; Atty. Ortiz cleared due to insufficient evidence.
complaint
lawyers
notarizing documents

Case Summary (A.C. No. 10540)

Factual Background

The spouses alleged that they were the registered owners of the subject property and that they intended to sell it to one of their sisters. According to the spouses, in February 2006, their sister Marciana Reyes entrusted the owner’s copy of the title to Susan Manito to assess the taxes due from the sale. The title and related documents were never returned. Reyes later learned from people close to Gaila Montero that the title had been mortgaged to Montero.

The spouses, after being informed through Reyes, went to Montero and attempted to obtain a copy of the alleged mortgage contract. Montero instructed them to return the next day. When they returned, the spouses were confronted by persons claiming to be from the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG), who wanted to take them to Camp Crame. The spouses refused and instead went to the Register of Deeds (RD) of Muntinlupa City, where they discovered that a Deed of Mortgage dated March 8, 2006 had been registered and annotated at the back of their title under Entry No. 64418. Based on that deed, they appeared to be mortgagors of a loan purportedly obtained from Montero in the amount of P60,000.00. The spouses assailed the deed’s authenticity, denying their signatures and denying that they appeared before any notary listed in the instrument, namely Ortiz and Arca. They likewise denied authorizing anyone to mortgage the property for them, and they challenged the Community Tax Certificates (CTCs) indicated in the deed, asserting that the CTCs did not belong to them because their certificates were secured from the City of Manila though they were residents of Molino, Cavite.

On August 16, 2006, the spouses found another annotation on their title. A document entitled Supplemental to the Deed of Mortgage had been registered under Entry No. 64467 and notarized by respondent Arca. The supplemental deed purportedly reflected that the spouses secured an additional P200,000.00 from Montero using the same title as collateral. Again, the spouses denied having signed the supplemental deed and denied appearing before Arca. Consequently, they filed a civil case for recovery of the owner’s duplicate copy of the title and for nullification of the mortgages. They also caused the annotation of a Notice of Lis Pendens on the title on August 29, 2006.

Respondents’ Positions Before the IBP

Ortiz denied any role in the preparation or notarization of the questioned deed. He maintained that the spouses never appeared before him on March 8, 2006. He explained that he was commissioned as a notary public in Manila only for a period spanning from 2004 to December 31, 2005. In early 2005, he received information that his signature was being forged, prompting him to request the pre-termination of his notarial commission in Manila, which the Executive Judge granted on June 4, 2005. He asserted that therefore, on March 8, 2006, he had no active commission in Manila. He claimed that later he obtained a new notarial commission in Makati, valid from June 21, 2005 to December 31, 2006.

Arca, unlike Ortiz, did not deny notarizing the documents. He refuted the spouses’ claims that they never appeared before him and that their signatures were forged, characterizing the spouses’ assertions as self-serving. Arca further argued that because the spouses sought revocation of the mortgages, they effectively admitted the validity of the mortgages and could no longer assert nullity. He also raised a jurisdictional contention that it was the Executive Judge, not the Commission on Bar Discipline, that had jurisdiction over him because the spouses were allegedly disciplining him as a notary, not as a lawyer.

IBP Proceedings and Recommendations

The IBP received the case, and the Investigating Commissioner issued a Report dated September 21, 2010, recommending dismissal of the complaint against Ortiz for insufficiency of evidence. For Arca, the Investigating Commissioner recommended that he be suspended from the practice of law for one (1) year, that his notarial commission be revoked, and that he be disqualified from reappointment as notary public for two (2) years.

The Board of Governors (BOG) of the IBP, in a Resolution dated December 29, 2012, approved the Report with modifications. The BOG dismissed the complaint against Ortiz. As to Arca, it modified the penalty by imposing suspension from the practice of law for six (6) months, along with revocation of his notarial commission, if commissioned, and disqualification from reappointment as notary public for two (2) years.

In a subsequent Resolution dated March 22, 2014, the BOG affirmed its earlier ruling with modification and reverted to the Investigating Commissioner’s recommended penalty in part. For Ortiz, the BOG again dismissed the complaint. For Arca, it imposed suspension from the practice of law for one (1) year, revocation of his notarial commission, if commissioned, and disqualification from reappointment as notary public for two (2) years.

Arca then sought review by petitioning the Court, questioning why the BOG reverted back from six (6) months to one (1) year of suspension without articulating reasons. He asked for mitigation based on his alleged first offense. He argued that a penalty more fitting to his omission as a notary, and not as a lawyer, would be suspension from the practice of law for three (3) months and disqualification for three (3) years, citing jurisprudential teachings. He also challenged the applicability of Tabas v. Atty. Mangibin.

The Court’s Ruling on Ortiz

The Court sustained the dismissal of the complaint against Atty. Gervacio B. Ortiz, Jr. for insufficiency of evidence. The Court agreed with the Investigating Commissioner’s findings. It found that Ortiz had no participation in the execution of the questioned instruments because, upon learning of forgery, Ortiz immediately sought the pre-termination of his notarial commission. The Court emphasized that on the date of the questioned deed of mortgage, March 8, 2006, Ortiz was no longer commissioned as a notary public in the City of Manila, thus undermining the factual basis for holding him administratively liable for notarizing the deed under a Manila commission.

The Court’s Ruling on Arca

The Court also sustained the IBP’s sanctions against Atty. Roberto B. Arca. It found Arca guilty of breach of the 2004 Rules on Notarial Practice and of the Code of Professional Responsibility. It rejected Arca’s attempt to obtain reconsideration through reliance on the supposed presumption that he performed his duties according to law.

The Court found Arca’s defenses unpersuasive because his position in effect amounted to a demand that the spouses’ denials and signature challenges be disregarded without sufficient countervailing proof. The Court likewise noted that Arca did not provide credible justification for his notarizations in the face of the spouses’ categorical assertions that they did not appear before him and that their signatures were not theirs. Importantly, the Court observed that Arca notarized the documents on the basis of CTCs secured from the City of Manila, despite the spouses’ claim that they were residents of Molino, Cavite. The Court further stressed that Arca negligently notarized not only the first mortgage dated March 8, 2006 for P60,000.00, but also a subsequent mortgage reflected in another notarized instrument dated May 8, 2006 for an additional P200,000.00. For these reasons, the Court declined to mitigate the penalty.

The Parties’ Contentions on the Proper Penalty

Arca argued that the Court should not apply Tabas v. Atty. Mangibin because it was allegedly inapplicable to the case at bar. He insisted that the controlling cases were Soriano v. Atty. Basco and Father Aquino v. Atty. Pascua, where the sanctions imposed were comparatively lighter and more directly tied to omissions in notarial registers.

The Court rejected Arca’s contention. It explained that in Soriano v. Atty. Basco, the lawyer was disqualified for failure to enter mandatory details in his notarial register and failure to send a copy of the document to the clerk of court. In Father Aquino v. Atty. Pascua, the lawyer was suspended for three months and had his notarial commission revoked due to failure to make proper entries in the notarial register; the Court therein considered the first-offense status to impose a three-month suspension. The Court held that these rulings on notarial register omissions did not align with the evidentiary and substantive gravity of Arca’s alleged act of notarizing documents without satisfactorily verifying the identity of the persons who executed the instruments, and without ensuring that the spouses actually appeared before him.

Instead, the Court found Tabas v. Atty. Mangibin to be the more appropriate authority. In Tabas, the Court had suspended the lawyer from the practice of law for one (1) year and disqualified him from being commissioned as notary public for two (2) years for notarizing a document without ascertaining the identities of the parties. The Court in Tabas had considered the ease by which CTCs could be obtained, the seriousness of the consequences of notarization, and the failure to notice glaring signature discrepancies. The Court also found analogous the reasoning in Agbulos v. Atty. Viray, where the Court imposed the same structure of penalties—one-year suspension and two-year disqualification—based on notarization performed without ascertaining the identity of the affiant and based merely on assurances and a CTC despite the rules requiring competent evidence of identity.

Legal Basis and Reasoning

The Court invoked the governing principle that a notary public should not notarize a document unless the person who signed it is the very same person who executed and personally appeared before him to attest to the contents and truth of what the document states. Without the actual appearance of the executing person before the n

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