Resignation Does Not Erase Dishonesty: Rojas v. Mina on Court Employees' Liability
The Supreme Court held that a court employee's resignation does not extinguish administrative liability for stealing and encashing checks payable to judges.
Court employees occupy a special place in the Philippine legal system. Because they work in an institution that dispenses justice, the law demands more of them than of the ordinary government worker. In Rojas, Jr. v. Mina (A.M. No. P-10-2867, June 19, 2012), the Supreme Court drove that point home: an employee who stole checks and encashed them for her own benefit could not escape administrative liability by quietly resigning or by offering to pay back what she had taken.
The facts: checks that never reached their owners
Judge Melanio C. Rojas, Jr., Executive Judge of the Regional Trial Court of Tagudin, Ilocos Sur, wrote the Office of the Court Administrator (OCA) in July 2009. He asked that the benefits of Ana Marivic L. Mina, a Clerk III in his branch, be withheld. She had, he reported, been
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