Court upholds priest accused of ‘offending religious feelings’

A Quezon City court has quashed the complaint that retired jurist Harriet Demetriou filed against a Dominican priest under the country’s controversial, but still extant, blasphemy law.

Presiding Judge Zita Marie Atienza-Fajardo on May 7 dismissed Demetriou’s complaint against Rev. Winston Ferdinand Cabading for violating Article 133 of the Revised Penal Code, or offending religious feelings.

The court ruled that Cabading’s controversial remarks were not made in a place of worship or during a religious ceremony or that they were “notoriously offensive to the faithful”—the two established elements of the crime.

“The Court finds that the subject statements made by the accused and alleged in the Amended Information are not notoriously offensive that are designed purely to ridicule or deliberately hurt the feelings of the faithful, or the devotees of Our Lady, Mary, Mediatrix of All Grace.” Atienza-Fajardo said in her ruling.

The QC court also ruled that Cabading’s remarks were not made during a religious ceremony or at a place of worship but only posted in a Facebook livestream.

“The Court believes, and so holds, that the said ‘program’ is a mere vlog posted in the Pananampalataya at Katuwiran Facebook account, which is a personal social media account of Bro. [Wendell] Talibong,” the decision read.

But Demetriou, herself a former regional trial court (RTC) judge, Sandiganbayan justice and Commission on Elections chair, said she would continue to pursue the case.

Appeal to be filed

“The QC RTC dismissal of my case is not final,” Demetriou told the Inquirer.

“My lawyers and I will appeal it all the way to the Supreme Court, which is the final arbiter of all legal disputes. I’ll exhaust all available remedies provided by law to every litigant,” she added.

Demetriou filed the charges of offending religious feelings against Cabading in 2022 after the priest, an exorcist of the Archdiocese of Manila, characterized the Marian apparitions at the Carmelite monastery in Lipa, Batangas, as “demonic.”

Caloocan Bishop Pablo David, president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP), admitted that apparitions should not have been characterized as “demonic” and apologized for the CBCP’s failure to intervene in the case.

Cabading argued in his defense that Demetriou’s charges were “overbroad” and that he was only exercising free speech in echoing a teaching of the Roman Catholic Church.

But the Catholic episcopacy admitted in March that it failed to make public the 1951 finding of the Roman Catholic Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith that the Lipa apparitions were not supernatural.

The “offending religious feelings” case was the first of three cases Demetriou filed against Cabading. One of two perjury cases remains pending in a Quezon City court, while the other was dismissed by a Makati judge in January for lack of evidence.