ANTI-NAPOLES BRIEF
ANTI-NAPOLES BRIEF
This "lawyer-blogger," as coined by Mrs. Janet Lim-Napoles, finally filed his Counter-Affidavit against her P40-million libel complaint.
Napoles, who is now detained at Port Sto. Domingo, Sta. Rosa, Laguna, charged that Causing, a veteran newsman-editor-turned-lawyer, committed libel when he wrote in two posted blogs her youngest daughter, Jeane Lim Napoles, displayed extremely lavish lifestyles in the United States of America (USA) during the period of acute public want among the Filipinos.
This blogger wrote that the money the daughter used in purchasing extraordinarily-expensive apparels must have come from the P10-billion PDAF money of the people stolen by Janet through connivance with senators, congressmen and several other officials of the government.
For those who are minded, you may read the Counter-Affidavit below.
Republic of
the Philippines
Department
of Justice
National
Prosecution Service
Office of the City Prosecutor
Taguig City
JANET
LIM-NAPOLES,
Complainant,
-
versus - NPS
Dock. No. INV-13H-00890
ATTY.
BERTENI C. CAUSING,
Respondent.
x----------------------------------------------x
Republic of the Philippines )
City of Taguig )SC
Counter-Affidavit
In the Name of The
People of the Philippines
I,
BERTENI CATALUÑA CAUSING, of legal
age, whose office is located at Unit 1, No. 2368 Leon Guinto St. corner JB
Roxas St., Malate, Manila, after having been sworn to in accordance with law,
do hereby depose and state:
1. The instant libel complaint must be thrown out or dismissed
outright for utter lack of merit;
2. First, there is no law, municipal or international, that
defines jurisdictional rules on blogs or weblogs or articles that were posted
on a website;
3. Second, the very nature of blogs that cannot be dictated by
law or any compulsory system is the fact that it can be posted in countries
outside the Philippines yet it can be read in the Philippines;
4. Third, the complainant was already a public figure when the
blogs concerned here were published and that the complainant failed to
discharge her duties to submit proof of actual malice;
5. Fourth, the Fair Comments Doctrine applies on the case at
bar and the complainant failed to discharge her obligation to submit proof of
actual malice;
6. Before the four points are discussed, let me lay down the
following introduction:
The
Prologue
The respondent
here has been a passionate lover of the freedom of expression, of speech, and
of the press.
To him, these
freedoms are sacrosanct as the Constitution treats them that no law shall
abridge them.
The respondent has been a journalist
since 1989. He was a sportswriter at first. He rose to become a deskman of the news desk
of People’s
Journal Tonight, which holds the record as the biggest circulated in
the Philippines in the 1990s, selling 400,000 copies a day despite the fact
that it was only sold within Metro Manila being an afternoon newspaper. In 1998, he was promoted to the position of
news editor no less than by the most legendary press freedom fighter of all
time, Joe Burgos Jr. He left People’s
Tonight in 2004 and became the managing editor of Kabayan English tabloid
that was closed due to brushes with the Arroyo administration. So
that it is easy to see that the blood of a journalist and opinion writer cannot
be separated from him. It is in this
context that the two controversial blogs involved in this case were written and
published online. It is therefore not
connected to his being a lawyer.
To reiterate, the blog articles being
referred to in this Complaint are all about freedom of expression, of speech,
and of the press. And if these are about
these sacred rights that are among the highest in the tiers of human rights,
how else could it be a source of a cause of action for disbarment or libel if
there is no act of lying on the part of a lawyer-blogger?
The complainant here also filed a
disbarment complaint against the respondent before the Integrated Bar of the
Philippines (IBP).
Blogs
not libelous
The two blog articles subjects of
this complaint are NOT libelous, there being no malice, actual or otherwise.
In summary, the blogs merely
expressed the opinions of the author based on the facts presented. All these opinions are fair inferences from
those facts presented.
And when examined, those facts
presented that were used as the bases of the opinions are substantially true at
the time they were published as integral parts of those blog articles.
To begin with, the blogs presented
proofs of lavish lifestyle of the youngest daughter of the complainant, the
intention was good.
It was my perfect right to give
opinions, no matter how harsh they may be.
At the same time, the blogs were also made to inform the people of the
existence of this youngest daughter of a woman who has been denying the news
articles released by Inquirer quoting
reliable sources as saying that this woman, Janet Lim-Napoles, had been stealing
public funds from the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) allotted to
legislators totaling to ₱10
billion.
To inform does not mean to induce.
To inform is merely to inform. With “to induce” is an act calculated in a
manner that there is that conscious making of statements telling the people to
believe in the writings because the factual recitals are true, tacitly or
expressly.
Nevertheless, there is nothing wrong
in inducing the people to believe in the cause being fought for. This is activism. This is advocacy.
Looking at the facts used by the
respondent, these consisted of the photographs copied from the Tumblr account
of the youngest daughter of Janet Lim Napoles.
It is noted that the complainant has
never denied that these photographs came from her daughter’s Tumblr account.
To the contrary, the complainant
even charges the respondent of stealing these photos from her youngest
daughter, Jeane Lim Napoles.
If she said it was stolen from her
daughter’s Tumblr account, it means that the photos copied by the respondent
are authentic.
By the way, copying the photos of
Jeane Lim Napoles from her Tumblr account can never said to be stealing:
copying is one thing and stealing is another thing.
The fact that her daughter even
posted these photos in a public domain like the internet is in itself a proof
that she has consented to the copying of her photos by others.
The fact that it was copied is a
proof that there was no privacy setting limiting it to be seen by persons other
than the owner of the Tumblr account.
It is as simple as this: a private
setting in any account, Tumblr or Facebook, makes the contents of that private
account invisible to persons other than the account owner.
And if it cannot be viewed, then
there is no possibility that other persons can copy the photos not viewed even
if the link or the URL is attempted to be opened by any web browser.
Nevertheless, to settle the issue
and conclude that these photographs were intended for the public consumption by
the youngest daughter of the woman facing insurmountable evidence of plundering
the pork barrel in at least ₱10 billion, let it be put on record that up this date, 7
October 2013, the same Tumblr account of Jeane Lim Napoles is still accessible
at this link: http://jeanenapoles.tumblr.com/.
The Office of the City Prosecutor must open this to confirm all my claims of
facts in this counter-affidavit.
As to the Youtube video of the 21st
birthday celebration of the youngest daughter of the complainant, this is not a
private video. The fact that I merely
cited the video that was uploaded by somebody else is in itself a proof that
the particular video was not private but intended for the public domain.
The video still exists for public
consumption and it can be viewed by going to this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UX-Ew4mhhUg.
Strangely, the complainant claims
these photos and video are private but they have not made any move to disable
or to take down the postings of the Tumblr account photos and the video
footage. What she speaks therefore is
opposite to her actions: doing nothing to take down those Tumblr photos and
video.
Adding insult to the blatant display
of arrogance by the complainant, is the fact that the Blogspot account of Jeane
Lim Napoles, http://jeanebeane.blogspot.com/, still exists even as I write this today,
October 7, 2013. This Blogspot account contains the photographs of some other
occasions of extreme lavish lifestyle, particularly Europe tours. The particular page of her Blogspot account
that shows her Paris tour is located at this link: http://jeanebeane.blogspot.com/2009/10/cest-la-vie-paris-je-taime.html.
If the one professing as a victim of
expressions of opinions based on the photographs and video has never even
closed those accounts to hide them from the prying eyes of the public, then how
can it be called libel to republish these photographs and videos?
The opinions I expressed in these
blog articles are that Janet Lim-Napoles must have stolen the pork barrel in
the amount of ₱10
billion because her youngest daughter, Jeane Lim Napoles, who was still very
young to earn a very good living and must have had no work was already sporting
apparels worth more than ₱1
million in one setting and going to where international celebrities were.
The opinions were also backed by
another evidence of extremely lavish lifestyle in the period of acute public
want, which is the Youtube video of her 21st birthday celebration
where she seemingly legalized the money stolen by her mother.
Nevertheless, what is important now
is that these facts showing extremely lavish lifestyles by any standard have
been bolstered by the recent release by the Commission on Audit of findings
that eight of bogus Non-governmental Organizations (NGOs) were either not registered
with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), having fictitious addresses
and having interlocking directors.
The same COA report for the audits
conducted for the years 2007, 2008 and 2009 shows findings that Priority
Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) of senators and representatives to the House
of Representatives were channeled through these NGOs.
The same COA report can be viewed at
this link: http://www.inquirer.net/napoles/coa-report.
The expressions of opinions are
further backed by the Senate investigation report where the whistleblowers who
were the leg men and women of Janet Lim-Napoles at her JLN Empire.
The full video live coverage of the
Senate hearing with Benhur Luy, a cousin of Janet Lim-Napoles, is accessible at
this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X02tMklqY-8.
The full video of another day of
Senate hearing on pork barrel scandal can be viewed in this website: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGVo5OEvqew.
There are other Senate hearing
videos and they all add up to the already-overwhelming evidence that Janet Lim
Napoles is indeed guilty of stealing billions of pesos from the people’s money.
Another set of evidence is those
contained in the plunder complaint filed by the Department of Justice (DOJ) and
the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) against Janet Lim Napoles, senators,
congressmen and other officials.
To prove the fact that the DOJ and
the NBI already filed plunder raps against Janet Lim Napoles, I cite here the
website of Philippine Star, considered here as neutral because she did not file
any case against the Star, to wit:
My opinions expressed in those two
blogs may have been very harsh.
But the truth remains that these are
even less than what should be the correct words.
Thus, for me to opine that the
complainant is a “motherfucker” is even subtler than what should be the correct
term.
The opinion that I described Jeane
Lim Napoles as a daughter of the motherfucker is even friendlier than what
should be the correct term for my opinion.
For lack of better term or words in
my mind during the time of writing them, these were the only opinions that
immediately came to my mind.
Issue of Jurisdiction
7. I now discuss that there is no law, municipal or
international, that defines jurisdictional rules on blogs or weblogs or
articles that were posted on a website;
8. The jurisdictional rules of libel is defined under Article
360 of the Revised Penal Code and these are the following:
a. A private individual complainant can choose to file it in
the court or prosecutor’s office of the city or province of residence of the
complainant at the time of the publication of libel;
b. A public employee complainant can choose to file it in the
court or prosecutor’s office of the city or province of residence of the
complainant at the time of the publication; and
c. A complainant, whether a private individual or not, can file
it in the court or prosecutor’s office of the city or province where the
article was first published and printed.
9. A reading of Article 360 of the RCP clearly limits the
application of this rule on venue and jurisdiction of libel to written defamation
published in a serial or newspaper or any publication that has fixed or
constant frequency of publication or to a book or pamphlet;
10.
To make it clear, let the pertinent part of
Article 360 be quoted, to wit:
The author or editor of a book or pamphlet,
or the editor or business manager of a daily newspaper, magazine or serial
publication, shall be responsible for the defamations contained therein to the
same extent as if he were the author thereof.
11.
In the instant case, the subject matters of the
complaint are two blogs posted on line and these have never been printed;
12.
Unlike serials or newspapers, blogs have no
frequency in terms of publication;
13.
Blogs also are not printed like books or
pamphlet, although they are published;
14.
So that even if we assume blogs as covered by
the ordinary libel law, the rules of venue under Article 360 of the RCP do not
apply;
15.
If that is so, then the general law on
territoriality of criminal jurisdiction applies;
16.
The general law says that WHERE IT OCCURRED
THERE THE CRIME CAN BE TRIED;
17.
In this case, the complainant did not submit
any proof of the place where I posted the two blogs;
18.
For all she knows, I could have posted the
blogs in Europe or the USA and there should be the criminal jurisdiction;
19.
Nevertheless, it is unthinkable how can the
OCP of Taguig City have jurisdiction over blogs posted in New York;
20.
Because there is no evidence where the said
blogs were posted, as equivalent to printing without conceding, then the
instant case must be dismissed;
The nature of blogs
21.
The very nature of blogs that cannot be
dictated by law or any compulsory system is the fact that it can be posted in
countries outside the Philippines yet it can be read in the Philippines;
22.
If that is so, the only remedy available for
the complainant is a civil action that can be taken cognizance by the
Philippine courts;
Complainant already a public figure
23.
The complainant was already a public figure
when the blogs concerned here were published and that the complainant failed to
discharge her duties to submit proof of actual malice;
24.
If she was already a public figure, it
requires now the complainant to submit proof of actual malice;
25.
This is discussed thoroughly below;
Doctrine of Fair Comments
Require Actual Malice Proof
26.
The Fair Comments Doctrine applies on the
case at bar and it requires the complainant to discharge her obligation to
submit proof of actual malice, to which she failed to do so;
The discussions
27.
To say that these articles she referred to
are libels, the complainant must show clear and convincing evidence to show the
existence of the elements of libel as defined under the Revised Penal Code,
which elements are as follows:
a. Defamatory
imputation;
b. Identification of the person to whom
the defamatory imputation was ascribed;
c. Malice in ascribing the defamatory
imputation to the same person; and
d. Publication of
the said imputation.
28.
Other than assertions, the complainant has
never submitted any evidence to show that the imputation she identified is
defamatory;
29.
And to show it is defamatory to her person,
she must demonstrate clearly first before she can be permitted to sue. This is because it can never be presumed that
one phrase or defamatory item is indeed defamatory;
30.
To say a sweeping statement it is defamatory
is erroneous;
31.
In her case, she said that her daughter was
hospitalized because of the blog articles that the respondent wrote and
uploaded onto his Blogspot account, www.totocausing.blogspot.com;
32.
But she never even submitted a medical
certificate to prove that her daughter was hospitalized;
33.
Further, Janet Lim-Napoles never even
submitted any affidavit of her daughter stating how she suffered from the blog
articles written by the respondent;
34.
Janet Lim Napoles also did not submit any proof
that she was authorized by her daughter to file a disbarment or libel suit on
behalf of the daughter;
35.
Janet Lim-Napoles also did not submit evidence
to show that it is the blog articles of the respondent that caused the people to
shun away from them or to consider them outcasts;
36.
For all she knows, the massive nationwide
public contempt that Janet Lim Napoles and her family have gotten can be said
more of a proximate result of the daily publications by television networks and
newspapers about the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) that have been
pocketed;
37.
My blog
articles about the lifestyles of the youngest daughter of Napoles maybe nothing
compared to the daily bombardment they have gotten from Inquirer and other print publications and television and radio stations
nationwide;
38.
I may concede that she has been identified
in his blog articles;
39.
I may also concede that these blog articles
she complained about were published on his personal Blogspot account, located
at www.totocausing.blogspot.com.
40.
But there is no element of malice;
41.
That is aside from the fact that she did not
submit any evidence of malice;
42.
Janet Lim Napoles is definitely required to
submit evidence of malice because she was already a public figure at the time I
posted the two blogs on his blog site.
43.
In this case, Article 354 of the Revised
Penal Code does not apply;
44.
This is because she was already a public
figure when the blogs in question were posted online;
45.
She was already a public figure that time
because she has already thrown herself into the vortex of controversy by the
time these two blogs were posted online;
46.
She threw herself into the vortex of the
controversy when she came out denying the accusations against her by the
so-called “whistleblowers”, including Benhur Luy, her cousin who spilled the
beans after he was rescued by National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) agents
from the hands of Janet Lim Napoles;
47.
Her coming-out happened days before these
blogs were posted by the respondent;
48.
Supporting the statement in the
immediately-preceding paragraph is a ruling in Borjal vs Court of Appeals,
126466, January 14, 1999, that says:
But
even assuming ex-gratia argumenti
that private respondent, despite the position he occupied in the FNCLT, would
not qualify as a public figure, it
does not necessarily follow that he could not validly be the subject of a public
comment even if he was not a public official or at least a public figure,
for he could be, as long as he was
involved in a public issue. If a
matter is a subject of public or general interest, it cannot suddenly become
less so merely because a private individual is involved or because in some
sense the individual did not voluntarily choose to become involved. The public’s primary interest is in the
event; the public focus is on the conduct of the participant and the content,
effect and significance of the conduct, not the participant's prior anonymity
or notoriety.
There
is no denying that the questioned articles dealt with matters of public
interest. A reading of the imputations
of petitioner Borjal against respondent Wenceslao shows that all these
necessarily bore upon the latter's official conduct and his moral and mental
fitness as Executive Director of the FNCLT.
The nature and functions of his position which included solicitation of
funds, dissemination of information about the FNCLT in order to generate
interest in the conference, and the management and coordination of the various
activities of the conference demanded from him utmost honesty, integrity and
competence. These are matters about
which the public has the right to be informed, taking into account the very
public character of the conference itself.
49.
In this case, there is no denying that Janet Lim-Napoles was already a public figure
because she was involved in a public issue, the PDAF thievery issue;
50.
So that what clearly apply now are the
privileged communication doctrines.
51.
In this case, the specific privileged
communication doctrine that applies is the Fair Comments Doctrine;
52.
The doctrine of fair comments does not
respect whether the offended party is a private person or not;
53.
What is important is that the issues or the
matters involved are of public interest;
54.
In the case of Janet Lim-Napoles, the matters
involved revolved around the pork barrel, particularly on whether these were
stolen by Janet Lim-Napoles in connivance with lawmakers;
55.
And if the issues are matters of public
interest, the doctrine of fair comments applies as a matter of course;
56.
And if it is so, then the only measurement of
whether malice exists or not is whether there is Actual Malice in the publication of the questioned imputations;
57.
Now, actual malice means either an act of
publishing a defamatory imputation that is false and the publisher knew such
falsity even before he or she published the same; or an act of publishing a
defamatory imputation with reckless disregard of the falsity of the imputation
that by its nature should have required from the publisher a cross-checking of the
truth or falsity of such imputation;
58.
It is very clear, actual malice is founded on
falsity;
59.
So that the basic issue now is whether or not
I lied when I presented the photographs I copied from the Tumblr account of
Jeane Lim Napoles, the contents of that photographs, the premise that Janet Lim
Napoles stole from the Pork Barrels or the Priority Development Assistance Fund
(PDAF) allotted to lawmakers, and the imputation that those million-peso-worth
of apparels worn by Jeane Lim Napoles;
60.
To stress: Did the respondent lie on those
items?;
61.
Stated otherwise: Are those items false?;
62.
Before answering the issue, the Fair
Comments Doctrine does not require absolute truth in the facts used by
the opinion maker;
63.
It only requires that at the time of the
making of the opinions or comments that facts recited as the bases are
reasonably true at the time of the making of the opinions and it does not
matter even if those facts relied upon by the opinion maker turned out to be
false after the publication;
64.
With the fact that Inquirer and the NBI already treating the revelations of the
whistleblowers with serious concerns is sufficient for the respondent to
reasonably rely on the statements published as true, particularly those
statements that said that Janet Lim-Napoles faked documents in order for her to
pocket PDAF funds in connivance with legislators;
65.
The dates of publication of the blogs and the
dates when Inquirer came out with a
series of news articles will show that the blogs here were published only after
the Inquirer series was published;
66.
The first blog, “Meet girl in
extremely-costly lifestyles using some of P10-B pork barrel of the people?,”
was posted online on July 19, 2013. It can be read at this website: http://totocausing.blogspot.com/2013/07/meet-girl-in-extremely-costly.html;
67.
The second blog, “Napoles daughter 'legalized'
'stolen' billions; Celebrated expensive 21st b-day in Hollywood,” was posted
online on July 30, 2013. It can be read at this website: http://totocausing.blogspot.com/2013/07/napoles-daughter-legalized-stolen.html;
68.
Now, the first story of Inquirer, “NBI probes
P10-B scam,” was posted online on July
12, 2013, which can be read at this website: http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/443297/nbi-probes-p10-b-scam;
69.
The second story of Inquirer, “I am not
involved in any scam,” was posted online on July 13, 2013, which can
be read at this website: http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/443825/i-am-not-involved-in-any-scam;
70.
The third story of Inquirer, “How P10-B
racket works”, was posted online on July
14, 2013, which can be read at this website: http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/444275/how-p10-b-racket-works;
71.
The fourth story of Inquirer, “28 solons
linked to scam,” was posted online on July
15, 2013, which can be read at this website: http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/444693/28-solons-linked-to-scam;
72.
The fifth story of Inquirer, “Malampaya fund
lost P900M in JLN racket,” was posted online on July 16, 2013, which can
be read at this website: http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/445585/malampaya-fund-lost-p900m-in-jln-racket;
73.
The sixth story of Inquirer, “Napoles: We
control gov’t,” was posted online on July
17, 2013, which can be read at this website: http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/446383/napoles-we-control-govt;
74.
Additionally, it cannot be denied that Inquirer
has been enjoying high reputation for believability in the news stories it
publishes;
75.
So that by the time the first blog of the
respondent was published, the foundations of truth had already been solid for the
Inquirer to publish an imputation that Janet Lim-Napoles stole money from the
PDAF of lawmakers;
76.
There is therefore no issue that at the time
of the posting of the two blogs in question the respondent was already too
reasonable in believing in the truth of the imputation that Janet Lim-Napoles
stole from the PDAF of lawmakers;
77.
After the Department of Justice and the
National Bureau of Investigation have found strong probable cause that Napoles
stole billions of pesos from the Pork Barrel Funds of senators and congressmen,
and after the Commission on Audit has issued its official findings that most of
PDAF funds were channeled to the NGOs (non-governmental organizations)
identified with Janet Lim-Napoles, how could the respondent now be said that he
lied in all the factual recitals I wrote and I relied on for my opinions?;
78.
Never;
79.
After whistleblower Benhur Luy testified
before the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee where he detailed in straightforward
and candid manner how Janet Lim-Napoles stole PDAF funds, how can it be said
that I lied in all the facts he recited as basis in making opinions such as
calling Janet Lim Napoles as “motherfucker” and her child as a daughter of a
“motherfucker” that they must be fucked to (not “in” as suggested by the complainant)
prison?
80.
Never;
81.
How can it be said that I lied in stating very
harsh opinions inferred from the fact that Jeane Lim Napoles posted online
photographs with captions that she herself wrote, stating what she was wearing
in each of those photos?;
82.
Imagine those captions Jeane Lim Napoles
wrote like the Hublot watch worth more than one million pesos that she wore and
displayed with exuding arrogance, like those nine pairs of expensive YSL
Tribute shoes, like those Chanel clutch bag, like those Herve Leger dresses;
83.
Imagine the pictures showing her posing with
biggest celebrities in the word, including Justin Bieber and Justin Timberlake;
84.
It is very clear: It cannot be said that I lied;
85.
And if I did not lie, then the only other
possibility is I told the truth as the basis of my harsh opinions;
86.
Actually, Borjal vs Court of Appeals drew
strength from a much-earlier case, US vs Bustos, G.R. No. L-12592,
March 8, 1918;
87.
In this case, the Supreme Court, through the
genius of Justice Malcolm, declared that it is a right of the people to make
opinions on matters of public interest;
88.
Said Bustos:
The
interest of society and the maintenance of good government demand a full discussion of public affairs. Completely 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 an unjust accusation; the wound can be assuaged
with the balm of a clear conscience. A
public officer must not be too
thin-skinned with reference to comment upon his official acts. Only thus
can the intelligence and the dignity of the individual be exalted. Of course,
criticism does not authorize defamation. Nevertheless, as the individual is
less than the State, so must expected criticism be born for the common good.
Rising superior to any official or set of officials, to the Chief of Executive,
to the Legislature, to the Judiciary — to any or all the agencies of Government
— public opinion should be the constant source of liberty and democracy. (See
the well considered cases of Wason vs. Walter, 4 L. R. 4 Q. B., 73; Seymour vs.
Butterworth, 3F. and F., 372; The Queen vs. Sir R. Carden, 5 Q. B. D., 1)
89.
Now, even if there were errors of facts in
the recitals in the blogs, they clearly appear to be in ignominy: they cannot
be seen;
90.
In Borjal
vs Court of Appeals, errors in gathering of facts and of publishing them do
not constitute libel. It says:
Even
assuming that the contents of the articles are false, mere error, inaccuracy or even falsity alone does not prove actual
malice. Errors or misstatements are
inevitable in any scheme of truly free expression and debate. Consistent with good faith and reasonable
care, the press should not be held to account, to a point of suppression, for
honest mistakes or imperfections in the choice of language. There must be some room for misstatement
of fact as well as for misjudgment.
Only by giving them much leeway and tolerance can they courageously and
effectively function as critical agencies in our democracy. In Bulletin Publishing Corp. v. Noel we held -
A
newspaper especially one national in reach and coverage, should be free to
report on events and developments in which the public has a legitimate interest
with minimum fear of being hauled to court by one group or another on criminal
or civil charges for libel, so long as the newspaper respects and keeps within
the standards of morality and civility prevailing within the general community.
91.
Yes, I may have been too uninhibited, robust
and wide open in expressing his opinions of Janet Lim Napoles and of her
youngest daughter;
92.
Nevertheless, US Supreme Court
Justice Brennan, in the case of New York Times vs Sullivan, 376 US
254 (1964), says that even if opinions used in debates were too harsh, it
cannot be a justification to say it was libel;
93.
Brennan wrote:
“[D]ebate on public issues should
be uninhibited, robust and wide open, and that it may well include vehement,
caustic and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on the government and public
officials.”
94.
So that if it is really to be examined, it is
very clear that there is no libel;
95.
Ergo, it is very clear that there is no libel
IN
WITNESS WHEREOF, it is prayed of the Honorable Office dismiss the instant
complaint for being a waste of time, and that I sign this Counter-Affidavit
this 7 October 2013 in the City of Taguig before the Assistant Prosecutor of
the Office of the City Prosecutor of Taguig.
BERTENI CATALUÑA CAUSING
SUBSCRIBED AND SWORN TO BEFORE ME on 7 October 2013 in Manila, affiant exhibiting his IBP
ID No. 60944 and Driver’s Lic. No. N02-94-241544, issued by the LTO and
expiring on December 10, 2015. Further,
I certify that I have examined the affiant and I am satisfied that he read and
understood his counter-affidavit and that it was his free will.
ADMINISTERING OFFICER
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