Dagupan archbishop faces 80 libel cases

DAGUPAN CITY – From one libel case, Lingayen – Dagupan Archbishop Oscar Cruz is facing, it ballooned to eight with a whopping bail bond of P800,000.

“Strange but true,” said Cruz, former president of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines, in his online blog yesterday.

Cruz, also chairman of Krusada ng Bayan Laban sa Sugal (People’s Crusade Against Gambling) said the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. (Pagcor), which is probably orchestrating and altogether funding the prosecution of the case, must be enjoying the spectacle with glee, must be laughing with great delight at the marked improvement of basically its own libel case.

“It could be jumping for joy the moment its accused would go to jail either for his refusal or his inability to pay the bail bond, which is now 80 times more,” Cruz said.

With its indulgence, hopefully Pagcor would not be offended by an unsolicited advice from its own accused in order to make its libel case not only more compelling but also more electrifying, he said.

“Who knows? It might then even get a page in the Guinness’ Book of World Records – with the probable heading: “A government owned public gambling corporation that filled the biggest number of libel cases against one person on one and the same issue,” he said.

He said the impressive 80 counts of libel appears to be based on the number of the assumed complainants multiplied by the number of newspapers that carried the story.

His unsolicited advice goes this way: Let the 80 counts of libel be also multiplied by combined numbers of all of the issues of the said newspapers – plus the number of all their readers, also combined. This would require a lot of counting that would also enormously increase the grand total of the libel cases, he said. 

And the total amount the bail bond would then be also enormous and spectacular, he added.

Cruz’s libel case stemmed from his column which was used by several newspapers where he accused the Pagcor of using its women employees as “guest relations officer” during a birthday celebration of First Gentlemen Miguel Arroyo in 2004.

He said this was unceremoniously dismissed by a competent judicial authority. But four years later, he said the Department of Justice had the case again filed – possibly for reason of national interest only known to its celebrated secretary. 

The Manila Regional Trial Court issued a warrant of arrest on May 12. Cruz posted the usual P10,000 bail bond for his temporary liberty.

In July, the arraignment was held. The accused pleaded “not guilty” to the one and the same libel case.

“But lo and behold! This September, there are no less than 80 libel cases filed against the same accused on exactly the same issue. And this time around, the bail will amount to a whopping P800,000. Strange but true!,” Cruz said.

He said the surge of libel cases filed and re-filed against some people who are telling the truth about the present government is apparently used to threaten and silence them, to keep certain to quiet from pointing out the realities in the country after no less than some eight long years of its seemingly omniscient and omnipotent repressive and depressive rule.