Legal Ethics

In Re: Atty. Saturnino Parcasio

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A.M. No. 1000 – 161 Phil. 437 – 69 SCRA 336 – Legal Ethics – Effect of Pardon on Pending Disbarment Case

In 1966, Atty. Saturnino Parcasio was convicted of robbery with intimidation. His appeals were denied. He began serving his sentence in November 1970. Meanwhile, a disbarment case was filed against him on the ground that he was convicted of a crime with moral turpitude. In September 1971, while the disbarment case was pending, an absolute pardon was extended to him by the President of the Philippines.

ISSUE: Whether or not the disbarment case should be dismissed by reason of the grant upon Atty. Saturnino Parcasio an absolute pardon.

HELD: Yes. A pardon reaches both the punishment prescribed for the offense and the guilt of the offender; and when the pardon is full, it releases the punishment and blots out of existence the guilt, so that in the eye of the law the offender is as innocent as if he had never committed the offense. If granted after conviction, it removes the penalties and disabilities, and restores him to all his civil rights; it makes him, as it were, a new man, and gives him a new credit and capacity.

It would have been different if what was granted to Atty. Parcasio was a conditional pardon.

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