2 women get jail term for grave oral defamation

CEBU - For calling a woman a daughter of a prostitute, two women were sentenced yesterday to one year and eight months imprisonment.

Regional Trial Court Branch 14 Judge Rafael Yrastorza found neighbors Levy dela Cerna and Cecilia Bacaltos guilty for committing grave oral defamation against their neighbor, Vilma Tan.

Yrastorza in his four-page decision said that by calling or referring to their neighbor Tan as a “daughter of a prostitute” in the presence of their other neighbors, the two are guilty of the offense.

Oral defamation or slander is a public and malicious imputation of a crime or of a vice or defect, real or imaginary or any act, omission, condition, status or circumstance tending to cause dishonor, discredit or contempt of a natural or juridical person or to blacken the memory of those who are dead.

“The above utterances by both accused is considered by this court surely of serious and insulting nature. The same constituted a public and malicious imputation of a defect and the same need not be true as the definition states that such imputation may either be real or imaginary. The same words hurled in public surely dishonors, discredits Tan,” Yrastorza said.

According to Tan, she was in their house in Tabunok, Talisay City last November 2004 at the time of the incident with her husband when the two came along with a minor and shouted at her defamatory words.

The case of the 13-year-old girl who was included in the complaint was dismissed because she is a minor. – Jasmin R. Uy/MEEV (THE FREEMAN)