Sellon okays Castro libel case vs. lawyer

Cebu City prosecutor Nicolas Sellon has approved the filing of a libel complaint against a lawyer who described Assistant City prosecutor Mary Ann Castro as beautiful, but added that "it is the devil who makes her pretty".

Castro charged lawyer Vicente Fernandez II and Nanak Donsant Yu with libel after Fernandez, who acted as Yu's counsel, wrote "malicious statements" in their manifestation in relation to the case for malicious mischief that Castro filed against Yu.

Fernandez convinced Sellon that all the statements stated in the manifestation that he and his client have filed before the court were not malicious but were relevant to the issues discussed in the case.

It prompted Sellon to drop the complaint filed against Yu, but Sellon said Fernandez could be held liable for libel when he wrote several malicious statements that were published in a local newspaper (not The Freeman) on August 15.

Fernandez's letter was addressed to a newspaper columnist in reaction to the latter's published article, but the newspaper instead published the entire letter of the lawyer in its opinion page.

Although describing Castro as pretty, Fernandez said in his letter, "That is where the problem lies. If the words of Victor Hugo are of any help, It is God who makes a woman beautiful, it is the devil who makes her pretty."

Fernandez added: "In my memory, there is no prosecutor, man or woman, living or dead, who has given the honorable office of the city prosecutor nightmares in relation to highly questionable activities as reported in the local dailies."

Castro had been slapped with an immorality complaint following allegations that she was caught inside a motel with a married man, Zandro Augusto. But only a few days ago, the Ombudsman-Visayas cleared Castro of the complaint filed against her by Augusto's wife because the complainant is already dead.

Cherry Augusto was shot dead inside her apartment in Lapu-Lapu City while the immorality complaint she filed against Castro was still pending.- Rene U. Borromeo