MANILA – The Supreme Court (SC) dismissed the petition filed by a Cebu City policeman who questioned his removal from the service in 2010.
In a five-page resolution released in December and made available online recently, the SC dismissed Police Officer 2 Leoncio P. Canoy’s appeal for failure to comply with the Rules of Court.
The Office of the Ombudsman dismissed Canoy for dishonesty.
Canoy, while assigned at the Mandaue City Police Office, was slapped in 2008 with criminal and administrative complaints by Arnel C. Tancinco, then the executive officer of the Cebu City Traffic Operations Management (CITOM) Office.
He was accused of forging documents required for the release of a passenger utility vehicle that was being held in the CITOM impounding area.
The Ombudsman for the Military and Other Law Enforcement Officers found him guilty of dishonesty and subsequently dismissed him from the police force.
Canoy was cleared of the separate criminal charges for falsification before the courts.
The decision cited numerous defects in his appeal to the Court of Appeals (CA), including failure to include original or certified true copies of the judgment of the Ombudsman, as well as notarial requirements.
The CA appeal was also filed belatedly, prompting the denial.
“While courts are empowered to dispense with or relax the application of procedural rules in the name of substantial justice, litigants and counsels must likewise adduce proper and sufficient proof that their claims are meritorious enough to warrant the exercise of this power by the courts. Without such proof of substantive merit, the rigorous standards set by our procedural laws must prevail,” the SC said. (PNA)
