The herein respondent, Serapio J. Datoc, Justice of the Peace of Pagadian, Dinas, Tukuran and Cebuano Barracks, province of Zamboanga, is charged with having collected his salary for May 22 and 23, 1937, and January 10 to 24, 1938, despite the fact that on those dates he was outside his district attending to his private practice. The respondent alleges that he thought he was entitled to salary whenever he appeared as counsel for a party-litigant, and that if he indicated in his time records and certificates of service that he was never absent on those dates, it was due to over sight. The respondent has already reimbursed the amount he had illegally collected.

After carefully going over the evidence of record, I agree with the Secretary of Justice that the respondent ™s defense is unsatisfactory. It appears that the respondent did not collect his pay from June 5 to July 2, 1937 while he was in Dipolog where he appeared in his capacity as a practitioner before the Court of Zamboanga, and there seems to be no valid reason why he should not have collected his salary during that period so if he really believed that he was entitled to it.

In view of the foregoing and concurring in the recommendation of the Secretary of Justice, the respondent, Serapio J. Datoc, is hereby required to resign as Justice of the Peace of Pagadian, Dinas, Tukuran and Cebuano Barracks, province of Zamboanga, effective immediately.

Done at the City of Manila, this 26th day of September, in the year of Our Lord, nineteen hundred and forty, and of the Commonwealth of the Philippines, the fifth.


By the President:

(Sgd.) JORGE B. VARGAS
Secretary to the President