Bello’s lawyers file motion to quash
DAVAO CITY (MindaNews / 26 Oct) – The camp of former vice-presidential candidate Walden Bello moved to quash the indictment against him by the City Prosecutor’s Office for two counts of cyberlibel for his alleged malicious statement against former Davao City Information Officer Jefry Tupas who figured in a controversial drug raid in Mabini, Davao de Oro.
Based on a 15-page motion filed before the Regional Trial Court (RTC) Branch 10 in Davao City last Monday but released to reporters on Wednesday, Bello’s counsels maintained that the facts in the criminal information did not constitute an offense because the private complainant Jefry Tupas was a public officer, and that the complained online post was a “commentary or criticisms” on her “official conduct.”
Tupas, who was reportedly active in the campaign of then Mayor Sara Duterte, has been appointed chief of the Media and Public Relations Division under the Office of the Vice President.
Bello’s camp argued that when a public official or public figure is the complaining party in a libel case, he cannot rely “on the presumption of malice but must show that the accused acted with actual malice.”
To constitute libel, Bello’s legal team said that it is “required that [the statements] were false and made with knowledge that they were false or with reckless disregard of whether they were false or not.”
Citing Borjal vs Court of Appeals, Bello’s lawyers said that the actual malice is characterized as “knowledge of falsity or reckless disregard of truth or falsity, and further defined the latter as serious doubt about the truth of the publication, or having a high degree of awareness of the probable falsity thereof.”
Last June, the Office of the City Prosecutor here found “defamatory” Bello’s statement, delivered during a live interview and later posted on his verified Facebook account last March 1, 2022, alleging that Tupas and her friends were “snorting P1.5 million worth of drugs” and describing him as a “drug dealer.”
Bello’s post that led to his indictment read in part: “Mayor Duterte’s Press Information Officer, Jefry Tupas, was nabbed at a beach party where she and her friends were snorting 1.5 million pesos worth of drugs on November 6, 2021. Now, the Mayor’s excuse that she did not know that she was sheltering a drug dealer does not wash, it is not credible.”
According to Bello’s counsels, the Supreme Court, in Vasquez vs Court of Appeal, said that a “statement may even be defamatory and false, yet no liability for libel may attach if it relates to official conduct,” adding that the “only way for a public officer to complain for defamation is if actual malice existed.”
As former City Information Officer, they said that Tupas was a public official within the meaning of the Republic Act No. 6713, otherwise known as the Code of Conduct and Ethical Standards for Public Officials and Employees.
“Perusal of the alleged online communications … readily demonstrates that they pertained to Ms. Tupas’s official conduct as PIO (public information officer). They were commentaries on the news heavily covered by media that Ms. Tupas figured in a beach party in Davao de Oro that was raided by the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency,” they said.
Bello’s lawyers said that the filing of criminal complaint must be barred, saying that this was a case of “persecution undertaken by state officials in bad faith.”
They added that the alleged online communications were meant to challenge then vice presidential candidate Sara Duterte “to appear for the televised debates in order to explain the various issues relevant to her record as public official.”
“It cannot but appear eloquently that the instant case is a vendetta against the accused for daring to challenge Sara Duterte to appear for the Vice-Presidential debates. Private complainant’s actions, from all indications, are consistent with being a cat’s paw. Otherwise, if she was really intent on pursuing defamation cases for herself, without any principal, then there remains no reason to keep her peace relative to the media outfits and personnel who portrayed her as the target of the PDEA raid,” they said. (Antonio L. Colina IV / MindaNews)
No comments:
Post a Comment