Pasig court junks libel suit vs Dagupan newspaper

MANILA, Philippines - A Pasig City court dismissed two counts of libel filed by a savings bank against a weekly newspaper based in Dagupan City after it found no sufficient grounds to try the case.

 

In a five-page order, Judge Rolando Mislang of the Pasig City Regional Trial Court branch 167 ruled that he found no malice in the articles published by the Sunday Punch news weekly on Citystate Savings bank.

 

"There being no malice in the subject articles, a reasonably discreet and prudent person would find it difficult to charge the accused for libel,” the judge said in his order dated August 27.

 

The suit arose from two articles published last year by the Sunday Punch in its print and online issues for August 25 to August 31 and September 1 to September 7 detailing the bank’s alleged use of public funds to pay for the electricity consumption of one of its branches in Pasig.

 

The articles– disputed by the bank for allegedly being false– were based on comments made by an officer of the local electric cooperative and Dagupan City Mayor Belen Fernandez. Both officials did not retract their statements even after the filing of the libel suit against the Sunday Punch.

 

The judge granted the motion for judicial determination and recalled the arrest warrants issued against eight Sunday Punch editorial staff members– editor-in-chief and publisher Ermin Garcia Jr., associate editor Marifi Jara, contributing editor Jun Velasco, correspondents Jesus Garcia and Johanne Macob , online administrator Julie Ann Arrogante, production manager Jocelyn De La Cruz and cartoonist Virgilio Biagtan.

 

Lawyers for the publication– Harry Roque, Romel Regalado Bagares and Zharmai Garcia of the Center for International Law– argued for the application to the case of the public figure exception in Philippine jurisprudence on libel, which requires a complainant who is a public figure to prove “actual malice” in the allegedly libelous article.

  

The actual malice standard provides that any falsity in a news report is not liable unless the public figure concerned proves that the report was made with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not.

 

“The two articles in question merely referred to or quoted the statements of officials, thus establishing the fact that the accused did not write the articles and publish them with reckless disregard for truth,” the judge said.

 

He brushed aside the argument  made by the bank's counsel- lawyer Ferdinand Topacio- that the actual malice standard should not apply to it as it is not a public figure, saying that Citystate after all “operates a business that is imbued with public interest.”

 

Citystate is a bank owned by investors led by Antonio Cabangon-Chua, who also owns interests in print, broadcast and television outfits, among them the Business Mirror newspaper, Aliw Broadcasting Network AM Radio Station DWIZ, Solar Television Network and Radio Philippines Network. 

 

The judge said: “[c]learly, private complainant Citystate failed to prove not only that the charges  made by accused in the subject articles were false but also that accused made them with knowledge of their falsity or with reckless disregard of whether they were false or not.”