Baguio editor, 91, pleads innocent to libel raps
By Vincent Cabreza
Northern Luzon Bureau
First Posted 16:54:00 08/14/2008
BAGUIO CITY, Philippines -- A 91-year-old newspaper editor pleaded innocent to libel charges on Thursday when she was arraigned at the Justice Hall here, becoming the oldest journalist here to be prosecuted for a questioned news report.
But court employees said Cecile Afable could be the oldest journalist in the country to face a libel charge. She edits her family newspaper, the 61-year-old Baguio Midland Courier.
City budget officer Leticia Clemente sued Afable and her staff for implicating her in a series of articles and commentaries about a supposed government "mafia" that had profited from the annual Baguio Flower Festival.
In her complaint, Clemente said she was upset when the newspaper ran blind items indicating that a female member of this "mafia" was reputed to have past romantic liaisons at City Hall.
Clemente also sued former mayor Braulio Yaranon, the source of the Courier's articles, but a Dagupan prosecutor who took over the case recommended charging only Afable and her nephew, Courier publisher Charles Hamada.
All of the Baguio-based prosecutors inhibited themselves from the case, prompting the courts to transfer it to Dagupan Prosecutor Ferdinand Parayno last year.
When the doors of the Hall of Justice opened at 8:30 a.m. Thursday, Afable, Hamada and lawyer Pablito Sanidad, former president of the Free Legal Assistance Group (Flag), faced Judge Antonio Esteves, who disallowed photographers and television crews from covering the proceedings.
Lawyer James Bahul, clerk of court, said Estevez wanted to avoid drawing unnecessary media attention to the case.
Courier employees and journalists trooped to the court to support Afable. Some came wearing black outfits.
Afable was calm and amused, court employees said.
She has been working for her family newspaper since the 1940s, and remains fit enough to cover news events in high heels and short skirts, said her niece Kathleen Okubo.
According to the case documents, Yaranon accused city officials of graft for their participation in a private foundation running the Baguio Flower Festival.
His main issue was a series of cash disbursements made by city employees for the festival, despite the fact that the foundation was supposedly privately run.
Records showed that the Courier had alluded to a female official in several commentaries but had not named Clemente.
Clemente, however, was identified in a newspaper article that dealt squarely with Yaranon's charges.
In recommending the filing of the libel charges, Prosecutor Parayno said the commentaries alluding to the unnamed female official's promiscuity were malicious.
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