Libel-free

“WHEREFORE, THIS court hereby (a) provisionally dismisses the case; (b) orders the release of the cash bond…”

So ordered the Honorable Judge Jonel S. Mercado, RTC Branch 52 in Guagua town, of Criminal Case No. G-16-11638 – People of the Phil. vs. Diosdado “Ding” Cervantes Jr. y Cabrera, Caesar “Bong” Lacson y Zapata, and Eduardo Manugue y Guiao – on Aug. 12, 2020. Copies of which were released Aug. 25.

This dismissal arrived at after the complainant SPO3 Jimmy Santos failed to be present in the hearings scheduled July 29, Aug. 5, and Aug. 12, 2020, with Public Prosecutor Marlyds L. Estardo-Teodoro manifesting she was amenable to the provisional dismissal.

The brevity of the order totally belies the length of time the libel case took in court.

It was in Oct. 2015 that Santos filed a libel complaint with the Pampanga Prosecutors Office over the news story “2 Guagua cops under fire for hiding shabu evidence, acts of lasciviousness” inconspicuously published in page 2 of Punto’s Aug. 10-11, 2015 issue.

Written by Ding, it cited Manugue, identified as  provincial head of the Anti-Poverty Commission, as having accused Santos of keeping from the court one of three plastic sachets of shabu as evidence seized from a suspected drug dealer in a buy-bust operation and putting to personal use a vehicle impounded in the raid for use as evidence.

The complaint was brought to court in August 2016, at the RTC Branch 50 in Guagua town. There it remained virtually on “pre-trial” until Feb. 20, 2020 when the Honorable Judge Amor M.  Dimatactac-Romero inhibited herself from the case “to provide a clean slate for the parties to start with” citing the certiorari filed a year or so ago by the accused but dismissed by the Court of Appeals, whereby it was raffled off and landed at the RTC Branch 52.

What did not move – for a variety of reasons – for four years under one judge, was decided in three weeks by another judge. Quirks of justice, I just have to say. Especially given that the complainant, in all those four years, presented himself in court not more than three times.  

Long in coming, but the dismissal is finally here. And I cannot be any happier, consoled with the thought that it did not take another 20 years for this case to be resolved as the one previous to this had.

20 years ‘warranted’

Aye, I remember precisely praying for that with the dismissal of the first case coming immediately after I posted bail on the second. Writing here under the headline 20 years ‘warranted’ thus: Uh-oh, could have been speaking too soon. Yes, I have yet to be arraigned in one more libel case. Though I have already posted bail – P10,000 this time – to pre-empt the issuance of any warrant of arrest. Hopefully, this one won’t last another 20 years.

Criminal Case No. 97-149 for libel may be one for the books, if only for the 20 years it took for its resolution.

The case was filed in 1996 by one Rowena Domingo of the Mabalacat Water District over a Sun-Star Clark news story which exposed alleged cases of nepotism and abuse of authority in the managerial succession in the agency. Accused were publisher Joe Pavia, managing editor Ody Fabian, associate editor Bong Lacson, and of course the writer whose name I can’t immediately recall.

Immediate to the filing, veteran newsman Toy Soto brokered a meeting between us and the complainant where she said she would withdraw the case soonest. Taking her word, we did not present any counter-affidavits anymore and forgot all about the case.

In the course of time, Sun-Star Clark re-birthed itself as Sun-Star Pampanga in 2001. Ody died in February 2005, and Joe in 2011. Toy died in 2007, or thereabouts.

In November 2015, I was at the NBI applying for clearance pursuant to the renewal of my gun licenses when CC No. 97-149 surfaced in the agency’s records   with a corresponding alias warrant.

I had to rush to RTC 62 where my case was lodged, and posted the required cash bond of P2,000 for my provisional liberty. With RTC 62 designated a “drug court,” and me having not been arraigned yet, the records of my case were turned over to the Office of the Clerk of Court for re-raffle.

Atty. Rico

Initially assigned to RTC 60, CC No. 97-149 was – upon motion of my counsel Enrico P. Quiambao – re-raffled and landed at RTC 56 in April 2016. (Reminds me I haven’t thank Atty. Rico for being our counsel too in the case just dismissed).   

Right at the arraignment in June 2016, Rico made manifest the absence of the complainant and highlighted the number of years the complaint remained archived without any word from the complainant or her counsels. And moved for its dismissal.

WHEREFORE, this case is ordered DISMISSED against accused Caesar Lacson y Zapata for lack of interest to prosecute…

SO ORDERED. Given in open Court this 18^th day of August, 2016 in Angeles City.

Thus, the Honorable Irin Zenaida S. Buan, presiding judge of RTC Branch 56, in a single-page decision, thoroughly expunged any iota of guilt and definitively “unwarranted” an alias arrest order on my person.

The case that dragged on – absent my knowledge – for all of 20 years took but two hearings to be scratched off the court archives.

Two decades for one case. Four years and ten months for another. Why am I keeping my strong faith in our justice system?

Because the cases have been dismissed and I am exonerated. Duh!

Beyond that is my core belief that a libel case is par for the course in the journalism field.

It is the only legal recourse of the citizen 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 that I never begrudged all those people who took me to court for libel. Seven or eight, I have lost count.

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… 

Ay, I think I have read that in one of my previous writings. Maybe, I can just look it up and reprint it here as supplementary to this piece.

In the meantime, let me savor that “libel-free” vibe after 24 long years. For who knows how short this will last.   

Terminal case

 

“THE CLARK International Airport New Passenger Terminal is on track to be fully operational by January 2021, with the building shell already 99.52 percent completed.”

Good news amid all that gloom and doom wrought by the rampaging cases of the coronavirus disease afflicting the nation and the world.

“We are excited to see this project open in five months. Clark’s new and modern terminal will not only enhance connectivity and improve passenger experience, it will also further boost economic growth in the region,” enthused Flagship Programs and Projects Sec. Vince Dizon, also president-CEO of the Bases Conversion and Development Authority.

The new CRK passenger terminal is a joint project of the BCDA and the Department of Transportation under the Build, Build, Build program of the Duterte administration.

We, the people of the Metro Clark area, are as much, if not more excited than Dizon over this development, long, long promised it has been to us but only now on the verge of being delivered.

So, even as we relish the emerging realization of that dream long cherished, we can’t help but recall all the frustrations through all these years over the failure to launch the Clark terminal. That, we chronologized in a Zona piece dated July 16, 2012 aptly titled Terminal delirium, to wit:

In September 2006, on or around the birthday of her father, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo presided over the laying of the time capsule for the construction of Terminal 2. It was announced then that the sum of P3 billion, to come from the Manila International Airport Authority, the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp., and the Bureau of Immigration, among other agencies would be allotted for the project.

The plan did not pass beyond the publicity for the event.

Under the CIAC chairmanship of foremost architect Nestor Mangio, came the $1.2 billion proposal from an ALMAL Investments Co., a subsidiary of the Kuwaiti mega developer M.A. Kharafi Projects, “to cover all civil components of the DMIA Terminals 1, 2 and 3 plus the adjacent 1,500 hectares in the aviation complex strictly following the CIAC original master plan.”

Travels to Kuwait and Egypt by CIAC officials and even GMA herself yielded nothing but loose talks of Rolexes and Patek Philippes finding themselves on non-Arab wrists.

Thereafter followed the CIAC report of a group of major government-linked and private firms in Malaysia called Bristeel Overseas Ventures, Inc. (BOVI) offering to infuse at least $150 million in foreign direct investment to immediately undertake the much-needed expansion of the passenger terminal of the Clark International Airport.

And then we came to read that in a regular meeting on May 17, 2010, the CIAC Board “resolved to accept for detailed negotiations” the proposal of the Philco Aero Inc. on the Passenger Terminal 2 Development Project of the DMIA, as it was deemed “superior” to the BOVI proposal.

That was the first and last time we read about and heard of Philco Aero…

As one of the last official acts of GMA as president though, she inaugurated the refurbished terminal, complete with two airbridges two or three days before she stepped down. That was the only concrete, albeit incomplete, improvement at the CIA terminal after all those billion-dollar proposals

In January 2012 the CIAC was high with terminal fever again.

(CIAC President-CEO Victor Jose) Luciano announced that “they” are pushing for the construction of a budget terminal that will handle about 10 million passengers a year at the CIA.

According to the press release, “The new facility, amounting to P12 billion, will take three years to complete and make (the CIA) the second largest airport in the country, next to Manila’s NAIA.”

“This budget terminal is the kind of terminal that meets the requirements of our airport in Clark. Our terminal right now can only accommodate 2.5 million. So, we need a budget terminal to effectively say that DMIA is the next budget airline airport of the country.” So hyped Luciano.

In February 2012, CIAC signed a P1-billion loan facility with Land Bank of the Philippines for what it said was the Phase II expansion of the passenger terminal and other support infrastructure of the CIA, including navigational equipment.

Luciano said the bidding of the Phase II expansion of the P360-million passenger terminal was to start on March 5… 

Only a month or two ago, CIAC announced it was seeking some P8 billion for a low-cost carrier terminal, soon after upgraded to P12 billion, complete with presidential backing…   

With CIAC in this perpetual state of terminal delirium, Clark’s premier international gateway future could only be in coma.    

And it did not end there. Further terminal non-developments thereafter, as culled from past columns too:

P7.2-B LCC terminal

On October 2, 2013, Luciano announced, at the sidelines of Emirates’ inaugural Dubai-Clark flight, that the construction of the proposed P7.2-billion budget terminal at the Clark airport will likely start in the second quarter of 2014 and is expected to be completed by the second quarter of 2016.

The terminal, he noted, will have a capacity of between 10 million and 15 million passengers. He added the government may fund the project or place it under the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) program.

In May 2015, Luciano’s successor, Atty. Emigdio Tanjuatco III disclosed that CIAC “is set to bid out the contract for the first phase of the P7.2-billion low cost carrier passenger terminal building…within the next two months.”

Tanjuatco said the first phase of the project worth P1.2 billion would be presented to the NEDA for approval: “Once the President approves it, hopefully the bidding for the project will start by the middle of this year.”

In September 2015, Tanjuatco again announced that President BS Aquino III “finally approved the allotment of P1.2 billion for a new French-designed modern airport passenger terminal” at the Clark airport.

Tanjuatco went on to say that “the terms of reference for the project, which would cost a total of P15 billion when totally finished, are now being prepared for bidding.”

Rejection

In March 2016, Tanjuatco said CIAC “is bidding out the P500-million plan for its mixed-use passenger terminal this month.”

This, he said, was the result of the rejection by the NEDA Board of the Aeroport De Paris design as it was “too ambitious” for the 8 million passengers expected to use the airport by 2022.

Ay, illusions, deceptions, delusions, hallucinations – all make a terminal case of the Clark airport spanning two presidencies. Bred – in the bitterest irony – in Clark’s own home ground of Pampanga and Tarlac.

Comes now the Davao ascendancy, and a brighter promise for Clark…

SO ENDED our piece Clark, terminally published here in August 30, 2016, two months into the presidency of Rodrigo Roa Duterte.

And four years after, lo and behold: the new CRK terminal is 99.52 percent finished. No promises Duterte made here, he simply delivered.   

That Clark aerotropolis

 IN THE thick of the coronavirus pandemic, more mirage than miracle do I make out of a recent announcement of an aerotropolis rising “soon” inside Clark. Call it unguarded skepticism.  

“Just like its vision for CRK, LIPAD envisions to transform its project land to be a premier mixed-use township destination North of Manila – an aerotropolis that integrates logistics, general aviation, and tourism to work, lifestyle, and leisure with CRK as the center and key component of this development.” So was quoted, in a press release some days back, Bi Yong Chungunco, CEO of the Luzon International Premier Airport Development Corp., the consortium handling the operations and maintenance of the Clark International Airport.

Turnover of O&M to LIPAD: Bi Yong Chungunco, Transport Sec. Art. Tugade, BCDA president-CEO Vince Dizon, CDC president Noel Manankil, among others

To actualize that transformative vision, Chungunco said LIPAD plans “to leverage” on the combined commercial wealth experience of its consortium members as they are closely working with Filinvest Development Corp. -- itself the main cog of LIPAD, and Robinsons Land Corp., corporate siblings of LIPAD partner JG Summit Holdings Inc.

Chungunco said the development of some 800 hectares within the aviation complex “which includes both airside and landside areas” is part of the 25-year concession agreement LIPAD signed with the government for the O&M of the CRK.  

Aye, there’s the rub.

“Eight hundred hectares could only be for ‘aero’ or aviation component, the ‘polis’ part or township would demand much, much more,” somebody that looked like a former CEO of the Clark International Airport Corp. chuckled, nearly choking on his N95 mask in a chance meeting last week.

But ain’t the Clark civil aviation area comprising some 2,360 hectares?

Yes, he said, “under the jurisdiction of CIAC, outside the concession agreement.”

Turf war

Instant connection now to this latest news of turf war brewing at the CRK: CIAC asking the Department of Transportation for oversight functions over CRK, in response to LIPAD’s non-recognition of CIAC authority over the Clark Civil Aviation Complex as mandated by EO 716. (Read “Turf war brews at CRK” in  Punto, Aug. 4)

A matter of hectarage – the undeclared casus belli – right there is the arena of conflict that impacts directly on LIPAD’s aerotropolis vision for the CRK.  Our friend Transportation Secretary Art Tugade will have his diplomatic skills tested here.

Then there is Ramon Ang’s mega airport in nearby Bulacan province that any Clark aerotropolis would have to contend with. At a clear disadvantage for the latter, sheer size a giveaway advantage to the former. Why, the very viability of CRK will be at issue once the touted New Manila International Airport comes into being.    

Scale model of Ramon Ang's airport in Bulacan

So, am I raining down on LIPAD’s parade?

Far from these seeming gloom-mongering, I am all for the CRK. In all ways have been. Always will be. My writings will bear me out, dating back to the American occupation of Clark when we advocated for a dual use of the Clark airport – military and commercial.

It’s just that experience has shown that any talk of a Clark aerotropolis remained  just that. Talk.

Chichos

There was in February 2013 the Clark Aviation Conference 2013 with the theme ''The Case for Asia's Next Aerotropolis,” aimed to highlight “Clark's compelling case as an aerotropolis, an idea in community planning where airports serve as the center for new cities growing around them.”

Declared then CIAC president-CEO Victor “Chichos” Luciano: ''The event will highlight CRK's critical role in easing air traffic congestion in Manila and driving economic expansion in Central Luzon. It will also identify infrastructure and policy developments at Clark Freeport Zone that are designed to attract airport-related businesses and investments.''

Emphasizing: ''More importantly, the conference is a call for the full development of CRK as an aviation nerve center in light of the economic growth in Asia.''

The conference ended as it began. In verbiage.

Guiao

In May 2014, there was the 2^nd Clark Aviation Conference dubbed “Clark: Reshaping Philippine Aviation – The Aerotropolis Concept.”

“…(A) compelling case to be an Aerotropolis, identifying the infrastructure and policy developments which will enhance Clark’s growth potential and economic impact.” So, it was hailed by its principal convenor, then Pampanga 1^st District Rep. Joseller “Yeng” Guiao: “This is consistent not only with my own advocacy but with the clamor of various stakeholders in Pampanga and Region III to maximize both the advantages and resources of the Clark airport not only as a global aviation hub but as an economic driver of enormous potential for the province, region and the country.”

Note the operative words both fora shared which I highlighted – compelling case. As it turned out, no one was impelled even the slightest to walk the talk.  

Alas, Guiao lost in the elections that followed, his aerotropolis advocacy dying unbirthed.   

In June 2018, at the 1^st Aeromart Summit at Quest Hotel, it was the turn of BCDA senior vice president Joshua Bingcang to bat for the “huge potential of Clark as Asia’s next aerotropolis” with the development of the CRK and the New Clark City going into full swing. And nothing more was heard of it.

Three tries at the bat. All three striking out. And they were not even the originator of the aerotropolis concept at Clark.

                                        Chichos Luciano and Manny Angeles

EYA

That distinction goes to then CDC president-CEO Dr. Emmanuel Y. Angeles.

In a forum of the Society of Pampanga Columnists which I headed in 2002, EYA broached the idea of an aerotropolis for Clark which he defined as – if memory still serves right now – “an airport-driven growth and expansion of cities into globally-competitive urban centers.” He even gave a time frame of 25 years for its realization into something like Schiphol in the Netherlands or any of those in the United States.

I remember The Voice’s Ody Fabian, still much alive then of course, asking EYA what would distinguish the Clark aerotropolis from those in other countries.

“It will have the biggest sundial in the world so that the time in Clark could be   seen even from up in the skies,” was EYA’s ready reply.

Persistent Ody asked: “So how would that sundial show time to evening flights?”

EYA’s instant answer: “We will put spotlights all around it.”

If only for that, Ody could have laughed his way to his grave.  

And I remain a skeptic.