ESPANOL V. FORMOSO (REMEDIAL)

Issue: Whether petitioner erred in ruling that respondents are guilty of direct contempt of court for using falsified documents when Sharcons filed its complaint for quieting of title.

DIRECT CONTEMPT is one done in the presence of or so near the court or judge as to obstruct the administration of justice. It is a contumacious act done facie curiae and may be punished summarily without hearing. In other words, one may be summarily adjudged in direct contempt at the very moment or at the very instance of the commission of the act of contumely.

INDIRECT OR CONSTRUCTIVE CONTEMPT in turn,is one perpetrated outside of the sitting of the court and may include misbehavior of an officer of a court in the performance of his official duties or in his official transactions, disobedience of or resistance to a lawful writ, process, order, judgment, or command of a court, or injunction granted by a court or a judge, any abuse or any unlawful interference with the process or proceedings of a court not constituting direct contempt, or any improper conduct tending directly or indirectly to impede, obstruct, or degrade the administration of justice.

We agree with the petitioner that the use of falsified and forged documents is a contumacious act. However, it constituted indirect contempt, not direct contempt. In Santos v. CFI of Cebu, we ruled that the imputed use of a falsified document, more so where the falsity of the document is not apparent on its face, merely constituted indirect contempt, and as such is subject to such defenses as the accused may raise in the proper proceedings. Thus, following Section 3, Rule 71, a contemner may be punished only after a charge in writing has been filed, and an opportunity has been given to the accused to be heard by himself and counsel.

Moreover, settled is the rule that a contempt proceeding is not a civil action, but a separate proceeding of a criminal nature in which the court exercises limited jurisdiction. Thus, the modes of procedure and the rules of evidence in contempt proceedings are assimilated as far as practicable to those adopted to criminal prosecutions. Perforce, petitioner judge erred in declaring summarily that respondents are guilty of direct contempt and ordering their incarceration. She should have conducted a hearing with notice to respondents.