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Question XIII

2018 Bar · Legal Ethics · 1 sub-question

XIII. Dr. Cielo is a well-known medical doctor specializing in cosmetic surgery. Dr. Cielo, together with a team of doctors, performed a surgical buttocks enhancement procedure in her clinic on Ms. Cossette Cancio (Cancio). Unfortunately, after a couple of years, the implant introduced during the enhancement procedure caused infection and Cancio became seriously ill. Concio filed a criminal action for medical malpractice against Dr. Cielo which was eventually dismissed for failure to prove that Dr. Cielo was negligent. Cancio was represented in this action by Atty. Cogie Ciguerra (Ciguerra). After they lost the medical malpractice case, Ciguerra started writing a series of posts on his Facebook (FB) account containing insulting and verbally abusive language against Dr. Cielo. Among others, Ciguerra called Dr. Cielo a quack doctor, "reyna ng kaplastikan at kapalpakan", and accused her of maintaining a payola or extralegal budget to pay off prosecutors and judges in order to win her cases. He also called on patients to boycott the clinic of Dr. Cielo. Dr. Cielo filed a disbarment case against Ciguerra for posting on his FB account sexist, vulgar, and obscene comments and language disrespectful of women. Ciguerra's defense is that his FB posts were private remarks on his private FB account and meant only to be shared among his FB friends, and Dr. Cielo was not part of them. He also claimed that the disbarment case was filed in violation of his constitutionally-guaranteed right to privacy. The Court, however, found that Ciguerra did not have privacy settings. Can Ciguerra be disbarred for the series of posts against Dr. Cielo in his FB account? (5%)

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