Salcon sues union, NGO executives for libel

CEBU, Philippines - The management of Salcon Power Corporation yesterday filed a P1.5 million libel complaint against two union officials and an official of a non-government organization who allegedly issued malicious statements against the company.

Alfredo S. Ballesteros, SPC senior vice president for finance and administration, asked the Makati City Prosecutor’s Office to investigate the alleged criminal acts committed by Giovanni Tapang, Gaudioso Iso, and Joel Tolentino.

Tapang is an officer of the Samahan ng Nagtataguyod ng Agham at Teknolohiya para sa Sambayanan, Iso is the union president and Tolentino is the union secretary.

Iso said that he is unfazed by the charges. “Panghulga ra nang ilaha,” he told The FREEMAN yesterday.

Although SPC Power Plant is located in Naga, Cebu, its head office is located in Makati.

Ballesteros said the three claimed during a press conference last May that: SPC received excess payments from the National Power Corporation amounting to P738 million that it should refund consumers; SPC earned “silent profits” in billions of pesos for purchases of coal and other fuel products at the expense of government; the profits enabled SPC to buy NPC diesel plants in Bohol and Panay for $5.9 million.

He however explained that while Iso and Tolentino are officers of the Salcon Power Independent Union, the complaint was filed for their false and malicious allegations in their individual capacities and not as union officers.

He said that the said statements were published in the May 29, 2009 issue of Sun.Star Cebu.

In a statement furnished to The Freeman, Ballesteros said that the three uttered these statements before reporters “with reckless disregard of whether they are false or not and clearly without any good intention and justifiable motive, as shown by their utter failure to present any iota of documentary basis or other evidence to support such accusations.”

Iso, Tolentino and Tapang nonetheless wrote Sun.Star Cebu denying these statements. But the paper stood by its story. – Mitchelle L. Palaubsanon/LPM (THE FREEMAN)