Former Chief Justice Artemio Panganiban described as “wobbly” Rappler CEO Maria Ressa’s main defense against the cyber libel case filed by a businessman against the web-only news site which is part of the media cartel of eBay founder Pierre Omidyar.
In his Inquirer column, Panganiban shot down the two main arguments cited by Ressa in fighting the cyber libel case – the case was filed (October 2017) of more than five years after original story was published on May 2012 which was beyond the one-year prescriptive period for libel under Revised Penal Code Article 90; and the subject story was filed four months before Republic Act (RA) No. 10175 or the Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012 was passed in September 2012.
“To set the record straight at the outset, Maria Ressa was indicted by the Department of Justice (DOJ) for the ‘republication’ by Rappler of an allegedly libelous online article on Feb. 19, 2014, not for its original posting on May 29, 2012.
Ressa was not charged with ordinary libel under the Revised Penal Code (RPC) which prescribes in one year… Therefore, in my humble view, her defense of prescription is wobbly since, to repeat, she was indicted under the Cybercrime Law, not under the RPC,” said Panganiban.
“Neither is her defense of ex post facto law viable, because she was charged with a ‘republication’ that happened when the Cybercrime Law was already in effect.
She was not accused of ordinary libel that happened in 2012, which the DOJ itself conceded had already prescribed.
Because the DOJ did not invoke an ex post facto application of the Cybercrime Law, Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra insisted he broke no law in filing the criminal charge and dared Ressa to sue him if she thought he violated her rights.” he added.
Panganiban said Ressa could still argue that Rappler committed no libel since the story was “a fair commentary on a matter of public interest” if she could prove that the complainant Wilfredo Keng “has attained the level of a ‘public figure’.”
“Other possible defenses, which I have no more space to discuss, are whether ‘republication’, an old RPC jurisprudence, applies to the new cyber libel, whether Ressa’s constitutional rights to equal protection have been violated due to ‘selective justice’, and whether probable cause, in the first place, exists,” he said.
In his Inquirer column, Panganiban shot down the two main arguments cited by Ressa in fighting the cyber libel case – the case was filed (October 2017) of more than five years after original story was published on May 2012 which was beyond the one-year prescriptive period for libel under Revised Penal Code Article 90; and the subject story was filed four months before Republic Act (RA) No. 10175 or the Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012 was passed in September 2012.
“To set the record straight at the outset, Maria Ressa was indicted by the Department of Justice (DOJ) for the ‘republication’ by Rappler of an allegedly libelous online article on Feb. 19, 2014, not for its original posting on May 29, 2012.
Ressa was not charged with ordinary libel under the Revised Penal Code (RPC) which prescribes in one year… Therefore, in my humble view, her defense of prescription is wobbly since, to repeat, she was indicted under the Cybercrime Law, not under the RPC,” said Panganiban.
“Neither is her defense of ex post facto law viable, because she was charged with a ‘republication’ that happened when the Cybercrime Law was already in effect.
She was not accused of ordinary libel that happened in 2012, which the DOJ itself conceded had already prescribed.
Because the DOJ did not invoke an ex post facto application of the Cybercrime Law, Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra insisted he broke no law in filing the criminal charge and dared Ressa to sue him if she thought he violated her rights.” he added.
Panganiban said Ressa could still argue that Rappler committed no libel since the story was “a fair commentary on a matter of public interest” if she could prove that the complainant Wilfredo Keng “has attained the level of a ‘public figure’.”
“Other possible defenses, which I have no more space to discuss, are whether ‘republication’, an old RPC jurisprudence, applies to the new cyber libel, whether Ressa’s constitutional rights to equal protection have been violated due to ‘selective justice’, and whether probable cause, in the first place, exists,” he said.
https://world-news-crawler.blogspot.com/2019/02/a-former-chief-justice-of-supreme-court.html?fbclid=IwAR2SjlgXycVqFCXr2LJqXC59If5lO6vbCQ2JnFqmCMQO9V62gQWi0y0xA7U
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