The case of Dr. Iggy Agbayani: due to technicalities or was he an ‘easy pick’?

An Inquirer news item read: “Supreme Court to revisit case of doctor who died in jail – Gesmundo” (News, 12/14/23).

The report said Chief Justice (CJ) Alexander Gesmundo “made the remarks in response to a mounting clamor from medical organizations seeking justice for [Dr. Benigno ‘Iggy’ Agbayani Jr.], including an online petition for judicial review” which garnered massive support from an incensed public.

In Alonzo v. Villamor, the Supreme Court en banc held way, way back in 1910, per Justice Moreland: “Lawsuits, unlike duels, are not to be won by a rapier’s thrust. Technicality, when it deserts its proper office as an aid to justice and becomes its great hindrance and chief enemy, deserves scant consideration from courts. There should be no vested rights in technicalities. No litigant should be permitted to challenge a record of a court of these Islands for defect of form when his substantial rights have not been prejudiced thereby.”

Agbayani, a well-loved orthopedic surgeon, found himself behind bars mainly because of “technicalities” and died there of a heart attack while doing missionary work for sick fellow inmates. Records show he was found by the Metropolitan Trial Court guilty of reckless imprudence resulting in serious physical injuries to a patient who suffered a severe infection in the knee under his treatment due to a “non-sterilized” diagnostic tool called arthroscope.

Truth to tell, had Agbayani not appealed that verdict, he would not have spent a single minute of his sentence in an overcrowded jail under the law of probation. That judgment, however, stuck in his craw. Fighting for his innocence and honor, he went the whole nine yards with appeals to the Regional Trial Court (RTC), the Court of Appeals (CA) to the Supreme Court. Much to his dismay, however, those appeals were given no more than short shrift simply because Agbayani’s lawyer failed to comply with the procedural requirements.

So, was it entirely the lawyer’s fault? Largely for screwing things up so unforgivably. But then again—no disrespect meant—it was partly due to the client’s own neglect. We are truly flummoxed at how Agbayani himself didn’t seem to care to check what his lawyer was doing or not doing regarding the case. From the moment the RTC dismissed the first appeal due to a “technicality,” Agbayani should have replaced his lawyer posthaste. Yet, despite the egregious failings up to the Supreme Court, he appeared to have done no such thing.

But be that as it may, the public could not help asking: Did not the legions of legal researchers in the CA and the Supreme Court see through the “miscarriage of justice” where Agbayani was denied due process because of the gross negligence of his counsel? CJ Gesmundo no less noted that the lapses were “apparent.” But more than mere matters of procedure, the whole shebang was a mistrial warranting a re-trial when it was concluded that Agbayani was “negligent” in failing to see that the surgical tool in question was “sterilized” — a task that properly belonged to other hospital personnel. It did seem like Agbayani was just an easy pick for criminal prosecution.

A previous Inquirer report (“Jailed doc firm on his innocence in negligence case till the very end,” News, 11/12/23) revealed that Agbayani’s family now has Estelito Mendoza taking up the cudgels for them. Alas, even with all the brilliance the “super lawyer” can conjure up to undo the injustice done, he can never have a “final sentence”—death—reversed! Perhaps, it’s time for the head-spinning “technicalities” in the rules of procedure to be reduced to the barest minimum in favor of “substantial justice” which is the raison d’etre for the existence of all courts.

STEPHEN L. MONSANTO
lexsquare.firm@gmail.com