Court orders arrest of Iloilo editor, columnist

Iloilo City — A regional trial court (RTC) has issued warrants of arrest against an editor and a columnist of an Iloilo-based newspaper in connection with a P115-million libel suit filed by Iloilo City Mayor Jed Patrick Mabilog.

But former Iloilo provincial administrator Manuel Mejorada, columnist of The News Today (TNT) posted bail of P10,000. His co-accused editor Junep Ocampo said he would post bail in Manila where he was on a business trip.

Judge Gloria Madero of RTC Branch 29 in Iloilo City issued the warrants after the Iloilo City Prosecutor’s Office issued a resolution indicting Ocampo and Mejorada for libel complaint. But the Prosecutor’s Office junked the complaint against a third respondent, TNT publisher Rommel Ynion, for lack of merit.

In a four-page resolution dated Feb. 3, Deputy City Prosecutor Honorio Aragona Jr. said he found the column of Mejorada, which was the subject of the complaint, “libelous and sufficient to hold the respondents liable thereto.”

In his column published on Nov. 8, 2011, Mejorada accused a foundation connected to Mabilog of alleged irregularities in the spending of donated funds.

Mejorada claimed that the Honest and Accountable Living for a Graft-free Iloilo City Foundation misused P2 million donated by United Parcel Services Foundation in 2007 to conduct an English language competency training program for selected students. /INQUIRER.NET