Vidal defends JV for mulling libel suits vs newspapers

CEBU — Right after celebrating a thanksgiving Mass for the media the other day, Cebu Archbishop Ricardo Cardinal Vidal defended presidential son Joseph Victor "JV" Ejercito for threatening to sue newspapers that have been running stories critical of his father.

"In a fit of anger and frustration, any son would do that to defend his beleaguered father. It is understandable," Vidal said.

JV was in Cebu last Saturday as guest speaker at the Third National Youth Parliament of the National Youth Commission at the Ecotech Center in Lahug.

At the gathering, JV told reporters his family has been deeply hurt by the accusations and criticisms against his father and that he now plans to sue for libel the newspapers that carried these stories.

But key figures of national newspapers and other news organizations interviewed by The Freeman took JV’s threat calmly, saying the First Family has the right to sue.

They, however, insisted there was no malice on their part in covering and reporting the events and issues affecting the Estrada presidency, especially his ongoing impeachment trial in the Senate.

Ermin Garcia, executive director of the Philippine Press Institute, said Mr. Estrada is entitled to file libel charges, but said this only confirms the vindictiveness of his family.

"The fact that his predicament is going through a process, there is national interest involved. There could be no libelous motive for this at all," Garcia said.

Before defending JV Ejercito, Vidal said in the Mass that he celebrated for members of the Kapisanan ng mga Brodkaster ng Pilipinas, that he was concerned about the anti-Estrada protest of the multisectoral group Barug Sugbu where four symbolic coffins were burned.

"The burning of coffins indicates violence. Priests, nuns and seminarians are people of peace and not of contradiction. They have always said that they have used non-violent means of expression but the symbols (belied) the intentions," Vidal said.

Vidal said his concern was stirred by a photograph in The Freeman that showed priests, nuns and seminarians in the background while the symbolic coffins were burning.

"We live by symbols. The burning of coffins is a symbol of death, and death is a violence to our nature. That symbol was there during the Marcos years," Vidal said.

Still, the soft-spoken cardinal said he was not slapping sanctions on members of the religious and the laity who took part in that protest action.

He said he was leaving it all up to them whether they would heed his call for sobriety or not. — Freeman News Service