Libel, again

OUT ON bail. That’s me since November last year. Owing to a libel case I have always known to have been withdrawn soon after it was filed at the Angeles City Prosecutor’s Office way back in 1997.

So confident with that knowledge that I included the case in the chapter “The Libel Tradition” in my 1999 book Of the Press, to wit: “…lodged by the Mabalacat Water District over an article that alleged anomalies in that office ranging from nepotism to incompetence…Toy Soto, a consultant of the water district office, intervened in our behalf and the complaint was promptly withdrawn.”

It has now turned out, the case was simply archived, never withdrawn. I got to know of its continuing pendency when I applied for an NBI clearance relative to the renewal of my gun permit. Indeed, the case carried a warrant for my arrest, prompting the NBI agents to offer custody, which I courteously declined, saying – only half-jokingly – I preferred to be detained at the Pampanga Provincial Jail with its most celebrated inmate.

Seriously, I hastened to Angeles City RTC Branch 62 to post bail and seek the reopening of the case. As RTC 62 is now dedicated to drug offenses, my case had to be raffled off to some other court. Yeah, and I posted P2,000 in cash for my provisional liberty. And now wait for summons from the court.

Come to think of it, since 1997 until last November, I was on the lam, open to immediate arrest by the police! Lucky that my haters were as clueless as I on the case, else I would have fondled the cold bars of a detention cell.

More seriously now, this libel case makes one more indictment of our (in)judicial system. It’s been all of 18 years since the case was lodged in court, through all those long years, nothing was heard of the complainant. Ain’t that enough to warrant the dismissal of the case for utter lack of interest?

The complainant, Rowena Domingo, had long migrated to Canada, per reports in Mabalacat. Two of my co-respondents, and co-editors, Joe Pavia and Ody Fabian, had long gone to the Great Beyond. Still, the case lives. Because I still live? Wow!

The ink on my fingers and my palms from posting bail had yet to be completely scrubbed off when I got a subpoena from the Provincial Prosecutor’s Office for another libel complaint.

A Guagua cop felt maligned by a story here last August written by the erudite Ding Cervantes alleging irregularities in the handling of evidence obtained in drug buy-bust.

I will not dwell on the complaint’s merits, what with our counter-affidavits yet to be filed. This constrains me though to re-state my position on libel:     

I HAVE had no problem with libel, notwithstanding the seven cases I had faced in my almost 40 years of writing. No bragging there, just being matter-of-factly.  

I have always considered a libel case as par for the course in the journalism field.

As a recourse – the only legal one – of anyone who felt maligned in print, broadcast, or personal utterance, to seek redress for her/his grievance. Indeed, the exercise of a civil right in our democratic state.

It is precisely owing to this core belief that I never begrudged all those people who took me to court – okay, to the prosecutor’s office – crying, at times ululating, that I libeled them.

I respected their right to seek my comeuppance for whatever perceived and felt wrong I did them. I respected them for their civility – of going the judicial course instead of taking the extra-judicial route with extreme prejudice.  

It is precisely because no libel complaint bearing my name as respondent ever prospered, finding closure at the prosecutor’s office – except for this lately discovered Mabalacat Water District case – that I have lived well with the reality of libel all these years.

Any dismissal of a libel case is a cause for grand celebrations, as much for the personal triumph of the writer-respondent and his paper or radio-TV station, as for the victory of justice, and the supremacy of press freedom.

In our time, not too long ago, libel cases were never considered swords of Damocles hanging over our heads in our daily journalistic grind, but areas of opportunity to test the bounds of the freedom of expression. The possibility of libel cases never deterred us from the pursuit of the story, any story fit to print, to appropriate the hallowed motto of The New York Times.

No fear factor, no “chilling effect” then as now did a libel case serve as prior restraint in our exercise of this profession.

Feeling safeguarded as we were by Justice Malcolm, writing in United States v. Bustos, 37 Phil. 731, 740, 741, to wit:

“The interest of society and the maintenance of good government demand a full discussion of public affairs. Complete liberty to comment on the conduct of public men is a scalpel in the case of free speech. The sharp incision of its probe relieves the abscesses of officialdom. Men in public life may suffer under a hostile and unjust accusation; the wound can be assuaged with the balm of clear conscience. A public officer must not be too onion-skinned with reference to comment upon his official acts. Only thus can intelligence and dignity of the individual be exalted. Of course, criticism does not authorize defamation. Nevertheless, as an individual is less than the state, so must criticism be borne for the public good.”  

Indeed, there was this somewhat perverted sense we held then – a number of us still holds to this day – of libel cases as badges of honor, aye, journalism’s very version of the Medal of Valor, to be worn and displayed with pride. So the more libel complaints, the more effective, if not better, the journalist.