vonjobi: wow, congratulations! kelan ang trip? i hope i'll be around when you come. had a good time with diosa last...
Keith Bacongco: Knowing Nograles and his Big Boss...garapalan na lang talaga.
Vinia Datinguinoo Mukherjee: Congratulations, PCIJ! Mabuhay kayo!
Lead Philippines: But without credible mass media there, what is left to protect the people..?
vonjobi: it's juned sOniDo.

Latest Message 3 months, 4 weeks ago

hopeless_race : Lets not just focus sa mga malversation of funds, sa mga overpricing..ating pagtuunan ng atensyon ang diskarte ng mga politiko na umuutang ng bilyon bilyon sa gobyerno."Small time" ang ibang pamamaraan ng pangungurakot kumpara sa pag-utang sa gobyerno ng bilyon na tunay ngang masasabing "pinaka big-time" at wala pang sabit.
hopeless_race : Mukhang tikom ang bibig ng lahat pagdating sa diskarte ng mga politiko sa pagutang ng mga bilyon bilyon sa gobyerno na tinatakbuhan. Itong pamamaraan na ito ang tunay na kumakain ng malaking porsyento ng ating national budget batay na din sa sinasabi ng world bank.
hopeless_race : Pakisilip naman po ang mga utang ni Villar sa BSP, ang mga utang nila RAMON JACINTO, RONNIE ZAMORA, JOE DE VENECIA at madami pang ibang mga pulitiko. Iilan lamang yan sa mga nababanggit sa balita na may mga malalaking utang sa gobyerno.
hopeless_race : Nagmimistulang "small time" lamang ang malversation of funds kumpara sa laki ng kinakamal ng mga umuutang sa gobyerno. At ito ay malinaw na natatakbuhan dahil hindi nga naman pwede makulong ang may-ari ng kumpanya sa pagkaka-utang lamang. Tunay na mga tuso at magagaling sa batas itong mga politiko natin. Masasabi ko na malamang lahat ng mga politiko ganito ang diskarte...wala pang kulong.
hopeless_race : PCIJ pkitingnan naman po ang mga gaya ni Villar na my malaking utang sa Gobyerno pero tinatakbuhan. Magtatayo ng kumpanya at uutang ng bilyon bilyon sa gobyerno ng walang balak bayaran. Tunay ngang walang nakukulong sa utang...ito ang prinsipyo ginagamit ng mga politiko ntin kaya nakakapagtaka kung san napupunta ang daang bilyong pera ng gobyerno.
hopeless_race : Sana itreat naman po ng media ang hacienda luisita at mendiola massacre na parang MAGUINADANAO MASSACRE. Ipublicized ang mga katotohanan at ipakita sa tao ang karumaldumal na pinaggagawa sa mga farmers dun. Untouchable po ba sila cory at danding at hindi magawang batikusin ng media about these two massacres?
hopeless_race : Kapag napaguusapan ang mendiola at hacienda luisita massacre ay parang walang nangyari at parang hindi big deal. Anu po ba ang pinagkaiba ng dalawang nabanggit na massacre sa maguindanao massacre?
hopeless_race : Its sad that we pinoys are blind to the fact of what had happened in mendiola and hacienda luisita. Ang tanong..bakit ang media ay hindi manlang matackle ang ganitong usapin? Takot ba sila kay cory at danding?
hopeless_race : Wilkins" brand, for P1.4 billion.-1999 Sugarland Multi-Food Corp. for P2.9 billion 2001- Purefoods Corp P7 billion P60 billion Coca-Cola ... See More 2002- Cosmos Bottling Corp. from RFM Corp. for P14.1 billion October 2008- GSIS' shares in Meralco worth PHP30 Billion. December 2008- country's biggest oil refiner, Petron Corporation. international company shopping spree: Australian boutique brewer J. Boag and Son for A$96 million in 2000. $97 million for Thai Amarit Brewery Ltd $35.5 mi
hopeless_race : Gud am..glad to be back.
jr_lad : rip mr. alecks pabico. you'll be greatly missed!
sevens21 : Dati input mo lng name at SSS ID makukuha mo agad STATIC INFO...
sevens21 : tawag ka sa HOTLINE nila walang ANSWER grrr we need pa namn ng static info SSS Gising!!!
sevens21 : Gawa naman po kayo ng article about SSS. Pangit ng site nila dali ma blocked ng account
guest_899 : we must check the background of each potential candidates to avoid having another big mistake like GMA
guest_899 : congratulations to PCIJ, more power and God Bless !
jazzymuver : how did Arroyo swallow that kind of things!! how come that she just spend the money our countrymen for her own sake!!
guest_3664 : i would be glad if u can include the investigation of the manner public officials announce infra projects as per COA regulation. It is frustrating to see their faces on the tarpaulin instead of the prescribed information like name of project, date of implementation,amount of contract, source/s of fund, among other things. This is very rampant here in Marikina. Thanks and more power on your noble endeavors. We need people like you to have make our country great again.
jhanz_08 : im making research on R.A 9136...with rgards to the privatization of NPC..could someone out there can let me understand more bout this matter?why was monopoly dismantled?email me..jhanycem@yahoo.com...thanks much
erika marie : P.S.:) my paper is due next week and i do hope someone could provide me these reports coming from reliable resources thank you ulit.
erika marie : P.S.
guest_4275 : i am currently doing a study regarding political killings in the philippines. could someone out there please send me human rights reports under Aquino and Ramos administration. you could send it at my email: erikamariet@yahoo.com your response would surely be very much appreciated. thank you everyone. god bless.
guest_4275 : i am currently doing a study for my paper regarding political killings in the philippines. i noted that there are no human rights reports during the Aquino and Ramos administration. could someone out there please send me reports regarding these matter? i do hope these reports came from reliable resources you could send it in my email; erikamariet@yahoo.comyour response would surely be appreciated. thanks everyone. god bless.
jayson bourne : gusto ko po maging member ng PCIJ, panu po ba? may application po ba? sana mapadalhan nyo ako ng info sa email ko... www.jboxpenshoppe@yahoo.com
jayson bourne : cory is OK, but kris & Noynoy sensationalize masyado...
guest_9891 : LABAN pa rin!
meow : boycotts worked during marcos years. how about doing it now against the businesses of the con-ass congressmen?
meow : aside from 168, what other establishments can we boycott that belong to the arroyos and their cronies?
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Libel and blogging

Posted by: Jaemark Tordecilla | January 30, 2010 at 10:43 pm
Filed under: Governance, In the News, Media, The Internet

CRITICS of blogging and the Internet often characterize the medium as a virtual “wild, wild West,” a place where any schmuck could make anything up with no consequences. But the latter has been proven wrong, and not only with posts or sites containing less-than-factual information. Just recently, Google took issue with Beijing after the Gmail accounts of some Chinese activists were hacked. Last week, a Vietnam court found three “dissidents” guilty of “anti-state” activities via the Net and meted jail terms. Charged and sentenced with them was a lawyer known for his work with Vietnamese bloggers.

Yet it’s not as if communist states like China and Vietnam are the only countries where words let loose in cyberspace have netted considerable trouble. Just this month, former social welfare secretary Esperanza Cabral filed a libel case against a blogger who had wondered why it was so hard to volunteer to pack goods meant for Typhoon Ondoy victims at a Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) facility. Coming at a height of a crisis in which thousands of people were in need of food, water, and clean clothing, the October 21 post on the blog EllaGanda.com caused an Internet firestorm that left the DSWD and Cabral on the defensive.

“As in sa isang humongous warehouse (1000++ sq.m) na punong-puno ng relief goods hanggang bubong, isang DSWD employee lang at isang security guard ang tao!” wrote blogger Ella in the entry called “Aanhin pa ang damo kung patay na ang kabayo? (A special report from a volunteer),” recalling what she said she and her companions saw at a DSWD facility. And yet, she wrote, “I know somebody who wanted to volunteer many times. She was always bumped off, laging nirere-schedule kasi ‘there were too many volunteers’ daw. At tuwing Sunday lang daw puwede.”

To prove her point, Ella posted several pictures of the relief goods stacked inside the warehouse. The next day, she updated her post, and cited a report in which Cabral was said to have told an underling that there were no volunteers, hence the pile-up of goods at the warehouse.

Cabral was vehement in her denial that anything was amiss, and the department vowed to “probe into the malicious blog more thoroughly.” Some three months later, Cabral, who has since been appointed health secretary, has taken another step further and haled Ella to court.

Libel is a criminal offense in the Philippines. According to Article 353 of the Revised Penal Code, it is punishable “by prision correccional in its minimum and medium periods or a fine ranging from 200 to 6,000 pesos, or both, in addition to the civil action which may be brought by the offended party.” At the very least, however, a complainant needs to prove a malicious intent on the part of the defendant.

One veteran lawyer defines malice as “any act or utterance tainted with evil motive,” adding that among other things, a complainant needs to show falsity of the accusation, as well as the relationship between the parties to win his or her case. At its most basic, the threat of a libel suit should deter anyone from making irresponsible comments or baseless accusations in public. Unfortunately, human-rights lawyer Jose Manuel Diokno, writing in the book Libel as Politics, notes, “Our laws on criminal libel are so broad and sweeping that they make everyone involved in the delivery of information of public concern a potential criminal.”

Previous libel cases against bloggers

For sure, blogger Ella is not the first Pinoy Netizen to be slapped with a libel suit. The first such case involving a blog, in fact, was filed against this one in 2005 by Jonathan Tiongco, then-Department of Environment and Natural Resources Sec. Mike Defensor’s audio expert during the “Hello, Garci” controversy. According to Tiongco, who passed away in car accident in June 2007, PCIJ was harassing him by way of the blog.

In 2006, the Yuchengco group filed a libel case against the Parents Enabling Parents (PEP) Coalition, a group of parents who had bought pre-need educational plans from the Yuchengcos’ Pacific Plans Inc. The Yuchengco group alleged that several defamatory articles, accusing it of mishandling funds, were posted on the PEP Coalition blog. But the suit was dismissed by a Makati regional trial court after the complainants failed to prove that the court had jurisdiction over the case, a decision later affirmed by the Court of Appeals.

Another prominent libel case involved technology blogger Abe Olandres, who attracted the suit not because of his blog, but because of his web hosting company. Several libelous comments were posted in the Internet forum GreedyOldDumbass.com, which happened to be hosted on his server.

The complaint against Olandres was dismissed after he was determined to be a mere service provider. This did not mean, however, that the individuals who posted the inflammatory comments were no longer liable for libel. (Details of the case are available at the blog of JLP Law, the firm that represented Olandres.)

But perhaps the most prominent incident of a libel case against a blogger in recent memory – that is, before the one against Ella — involved Bambee de la Paz, who blogged about the “Valley Golf Incident” that had her father Delfin and younger brother Bino in a brawl with a group led by agrarian reform secretary Nasser Pangandaman Sr. and his sons, Nasser Jr. and Hussein. The Pangandamans have since challenged Bambee’s account, with the younger Nasser, the mayor of Masiu town in Lanao del Sur, filing libel charges against her in the family’s hometown. Pangandaman’s lawyer Teodoro Pastrana told the PCIJ that contrary to some reports, the libel case against Bambee de la Paz is still pending.

It’s far too early to tell what will happen next in Cabral’s case against Ella, who had commented in her October 22 update to her original post: “I don’t want to accuse (Cabral) of corruption but at the very least she is showing signs of being totally incompetent. We are in a state of calamity where every second counts. May namamatay araw-araw dahil sa sakit (There is someone dying every day because of illness).”

“In my opinion,” she added, “these deaths could have been prevented if Secretary Cabral had tried a little harder to do her job.”

An effective piece of citizen journalism

A long-time bureaucrat whose commitment to her work has been admired by many, Cabral probably found those words hard to take. Still, the merit of Ella’s original post seems to have been lost in the debate over the ensuing libel case. Far from rumor-mongering, the post was an excellent piece of blogging and citizen journalism. It was informative, detailed, and well-documented, and it was written in a light, informal tone that resonated with any blog reader. It also asked pertinent questions: Why was it so hard to sign up to volunteer? Why wasn’t the facility taking in more volunteers when other venues had a surplus of them? What was going to happen to the relief goods once the damage from Ondoy becomes out of sight and out of mind?

The post was also effective, because after it gained popularity, traditional media outlets and bloggers swooped down on the DSWD facility to look into the matter. They confirmed what Ella had written about in her blog — that the DSWD could use help so that the relief goods could get out to the victims much faster. More importantly, Ella’s post served as a siren call for volunteers to come in droves to the warehouse and help with the packing of the relief goods. It underscored the power of blogging and highlighted the role of the citizen journalist in calling attention to important issues that may otherwise be left unreported.

Perhaps Ella herself said it best in yet another follow-up to her original post: “I was there in the warehouse. I presented the pictures. I think I’ve done my part as a concerned citizen.” It’s just too bad that like many other concerned citizens in this country, she, too, has been served with libel.

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 30th, 2010 and is filed under Governance, In the News, Media, The Internet. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.