SUPREME COURT DECISIONS

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DISSENTING OPINION

VITUG, J.:

With all due respect, I find myself unable to agree with my colleagues in holding respondent Judge guilty of grave misconduct. I am inclined to instead accept the recommendation of Justice Portia Alio-Hormachuelos of the Court of Appeals who, after conducting her investigation of the charges against respondent Judge, has recommended the dismissal of the complaint.

In her testimony before the Investigating Justice, the complainant, Marilyn Dumayas, said that she saw the forehead of respondent and suspected that he had peeped at her. Marilyns statement was, of course, a far cry from the affidavit she had previously executed where she there claimed to have seen respondent staring at her naked body. This affidavit, in my view, should not be given greater weight than that of her formal testimony. In the first place, the affidavit was not made part of the testimony either by reiteration or incorporation; neither had she been cross-examined thereon. The basic philosophy behind the requirement of due process, I submit, should not be held irrelevant to an administrative proceeding of this kind where at stake is ones moral integrity. Secondly, it would seem improbable for the complainant to have merely forgotten what she once narrated, the matter was not a minor detail but, in fact, the very focus of her case against respondent.

Accordingly, I vote for the dismissal of the administrative case filed against respondent Judge as so recommended by the Investigating Justice.