Speak not of your reputation, it's meaningless
Speak not of your reputation, it's meaningless
As the legal counsel of columnist Jerry S. Yap, who is also the chairman of Alab ng Mamamahayag (ALAM), I wrote to six councilors-elect of District 5 of Manila to defend press freedom against the assaults of these "epal maniacs."
In the said letter, I wrote the following lines:
Read the full letter below.
As the legal counsel of columnist Jerry S. Yap, who is also the chairman of Alab ng Mamamahayag (ALAM), I wrote to six councilors-elect of District 5 of Manila to defend press freedom against the assaults of these "epal maniacs."
In the said letter, I wrote the following lines:
"By the way, reputation, in itself, has no meaning coming
from one who speaks about his self. It
is substantive and music coming from the mouth of others. With this, any councilor-elect has no right
or authority to say his or her reputation for honesty has been damaged or not. And if he or she has no basis to say his or
her reputation was damaged, then he or she has no basis to demand punishment or
apology for an imagined damage."
Read the full letter below.
Renta Pe Causing Sabarre
Castro & Associates
Unit No. 1, # 2368 Leon Guinto St. corner JB Roxas St., Malate, Manila
Email Address: berteni.causing@gmail.com,
totocausing@yahoo.com
__________________________________________
June
20, 2013
HONORABLE CRISTINA A. ISIP
Councilor-Elect
5th
District, Manila
Thru: ATTY. ISRAEL P.J. CALDERON
The Law Firm of Israel P.J. Calderon
Room
303 ML Bldg., 47, Kamias Rd, Quezon City
Greetings for your election victory.
On behalf of client
Jerry S. Yap, columnist of Bulabugin that is published daily at
Hataw,
this is a reply to your letters dated May 31, 2013 and June 3, 2013.
Please understand that
the ideals and principles of press freedom, Republic Act No. 53 (the Sotto Law),
and good faith protect Mr. Yap from being compelled to execute an apology that
you demand and from revealing the sources of the information he wrote in his
column items published in the May 17, 2013 edition of Hataw.
Nevertheless, let it
be pointed out that it is uncalled for and unbecoming a City Councilor to
demand from a journalist to execute an apology when there is nothing to
apologize because it was a perfect exercise of press freedom and to threaten to
sue a journalist for refusing to reveal sources because it is protected by the Sotto
Law.
For the enlightenment
of the councilor-elect, let it be known that PUBLIC OFFICE IS A PUBLIC TRUST and NOT A PERSONAL TRUST.
Once a person attempts
to join politics with the view of winning a political position, he or she must
know that he or she is putting his or her privacy and honor at risk in the name
of public service. He or she must expect
all kinds of criticisms, founded on truth or falsities. He or she must know that it is a birthright
of the people composing the public to criticize and demand better public
service and honest public servants.
Now, the demands for
honest public servants begin from the time they present to the voters composing
the public. These do not begin at the
time of oath-taking or entry into the office for which a servant has just been
elected. So that any issue that may crop
up, true or not, that one person proclaimed by the Comelec as a winner was
reported to have bought votes and bribed his or her way to victory is included
amongst the risks to personal honor and privacy.
In short, any councilor-elect has no birthright to
demand apology or to demand the revelation of sources of published items that he
or she deemed to have damaged his or her reputation.
By the way, reputation, in itself, has no meaning coming
from one who speaks about his self. It
is substantive and music coming from the mouth of others. With this, any councilor-elect has no right
or authority to say his or her reputation for honesty has been damaged or not. And if he or she has no basis to say his or
her reputation was damaged, then he or she has no basis to demand punishment or
apology for an imagined damage.
Now, you may see that
press freedom is one of the indispensable tools invented by man to keep good
governance alive in letter and spirit.
Hoping it is now clear
to you. It is erroneous, inappropriate and improper for you to demand for an
apology and revelation of sources of information and to sue if the demand is
not met.
After all, public
officials are not left without sufficient remedies.
All they need is speak up and not bully those who
speak ill of them. They just need to
present their side to be read in the most decent and kindest way possible for them
to win the sympathy of the audience. In
the case of Councilor-elect Isip and the rest who also wrote Mr. Yap, the best
they could is to write down their side of the issue and it is assured that the
substantive points shall be published in Hataw subject to space constraints.
Councilor-elect Isip
and all other councilors-elect in District 5—Raymundo Yupangco, Joey Hizon III, Josefina Siscar,
Arnold Atienza and Roberto Ortega—may post their side of the issue on their
respective walls on Facebook and share the same in as many walls they can.
In the speech
delivered by Barrack Obama addressing the “Innocence of Muslims” Youtube video
footage that sparked violent protests across the globe, he said that the answer
to hate speech is more speech. The US President even pointed out that he may
have been the most maligned person on earth with all the catcalls thrown his
way but he will never ever trade the freedom of speech for his anger.
Additionally, we wish
to inform you that we argue that in so far as public officials are concerned,
libel law is deemed revoked by well-entrenched jurisprudence on public figures
that require that the kind of malice to be considered is only ACTUAL MALICE and nothing else.
Now, as defined by
jurisprudence, actual malice is not one founded on hatred, on ill will,
revenge, greed, or envy. It is one founded on the falsity of the
imputations. It is defined as publishing
falsities with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of the
falsities. So that it does not matter
whether the speaker has envies and yet he or she could not have actual malice
because he spoke of the truth.
So that Article 354 of
the Revised Penal Code, which is the heart of the existence or not of malice in
libel, has now outlived its usefulness.
To demonstrate, let us begin by quoting Art. 354, to wit:
Art.
354. Requirement for publicity. — Every defamatory imputation is presumed to be
malicious, even if it be true, if no good intention and justifiable motive for
making it is shown, except in the following cases:
In Article 354 it is
decreed that no matter what kind of imputation it is, it is always presumed
malicious even if true. This is now abrogated. This is because this is plain and clear to be
inconsistent with the Actual Malice
Doctrine formulated by the interpretative power of the Supreme Court of the
US and of the Philippines.
And in this case where
any of the councilors-elect cannot even establish by clear and convincing
evidence which is true, it is hopeless for them to sustain any libel action
that they may be thinking aloud.
So that it is better
for you, Madam, and the rest of the councilors-elect of District 5 to desist
from demanding an apology from the client and stop from compelling him to
reveal his sources of information about the Iglesia
Ni Cristo reports.
Lest we be clear, this
letter is also addressed to all other councilors-elect of District 5 of Manila.
We therefore request
that we be given the courtesy of a reply from all the councilors-elect on
whether they would agree to the request for them to desist.
Should there be no reply in ten (10) days, we would
deem that silence or omission as a violation of the right of Mr. Yap to
exercise the right to publish in a serial publication that would give him causes
of action under Article 32 of the Civil Code and we will not hesitate to file
damage suits and administrative cases before the Ombudsman.
Additionally, compulsion is a crime of grave
coercion.
Thank
you.
Respectfully
yours,
BERTENI
CATALUÑA CAUSING
Counsel of Mr. Jerry
S. Yap and Hataw
Cc:
Councilors-elect Raymund Yupangco, Joey Hizon III, Josefina Siscar,
Arnold Atienza and Roberto Ortega, all of District 5, Manila
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