MANILA, Philippines—The Supreme Court has dismissed a libel case filed by a trial court judge against the Philippine Daily Inquirer’s senior editors and other staff members, stressing the need to uphold the “constitutionally guaranteed freedom of the press.”
“In light of the particular factual context of the present controversy, we find that the need to uphold the constitutionally guaranteed freedom of the press and the crystal clear absence of a prima facie evidence case against the PDI staff justify the resort to the extraordinary writ of certiorari,” the high tribunal’s first division said.
The 12-page decision was written by Justice Teresita Leonardo- de Castro and concurred in by Chief Justice Renato Corona and Justices Presbitero Velasco, Jr., Mariano del Castillo, and Jose Portugal Perez.
The decision was promulgated on March 23 and released to the media on Tuesday.
The court granted the petition for certiorari filed by Inquirer publisher Isagani Yambot, editor-in-chief Letty Jimenez-Magsanoc, managing editor Jose Ma. Nolasco, news editor Artemio Engracia, and senior reporter Volt Contreras.
Named respondents in the petition were then Justice Secretary Artemio Toquero and Makati Regional Trial Court judge Escolastico Cruz, Jr.
A petition for certiorari is a special civil action in which an aggrieved party can ask the court to annul or modify the actions of a person with judicial or quasi-judicial functions after he or she acted without jurisdiction or with grave abuse of discretion.
The case stemmed from a March 26, 1996 news article written by Contreras on allegations by a court employee that Cruz had beaten him up.
In the article, Contreras quoted the employee, Robert Mendoza, as alleging that a sexual harassment case filed by a prosecutor against Cruz was pending with the Supreme Court.
Cruz disputed the Inquirer story by showing certifications from the deputy court administrator that he had only two pending administrative cases, none of which was a sexual harassment complaint.
But the high court said the reporter “cannot be expected to make the fine distinction between a sexual harassment suit and a suit where there was an allegation of sexual harassment.”
The court noted that three other newspapers made the same mistake of reporting that Cruz faced a sexual harassment case.
“The questioned portion of the news article, while unfortunately not quite accurate, on its own, is insufficient to establish the element of malice in libel cases,” the court said.
The court added: “The concept of privileged communication is implicit in the constitutionally protected freedom of the press, which would be threatened when criminal suits are unscrupulously leveled by persons wishing to silence the media on account of unfounded claims of inaccuracies in news reports.”