Arvin Cabalu, publisher-editor of the weekly Tarlac Standard, accused Vice Mayor Teresita Cabal of slapping him four times in the face inside the office of Mayor Genaro Mendoza.
He said Mendoza himself and some city councilors, who were at the time holding their legislative-executive development council meeting, witnessed the incident.
Cabalu said he went to the mayor’s office upon the invitation of the city government to cover the investigation into a report of the Tarlac Standard on an allegedly anomalous land transaction where four people who had executed affidavits turned out to have long passed away.
Cabalu said Cabal confronted him about a blind item in the Tarlac Standard that a woman oversaw jueteng operations in Tarlac during the term of former President Corazon Aquino.
During the Aquino administration, Cabal was appointed as vice mayor of Moncada town. She took over as mayor of Moncada in 1992.
Cabal reportedly told Cabalu that she felt alluded to in the blind item, and without any provocation, slapped the publisher-editor in the face four times.
The different media groups in the province, particularly the Tarlac chapters of the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP) and the Central Luzon Media Association, and the Tarlac Press and Radio Club, have condemned the incident.
They initially demanded that Cabal issue a public apology for her "conduct unbecoming of a public official."
Ronald Dizon, NUJP-Tarlac president, said what Cabal did was "a chilling naked display of power."
Cabal was elected Tarlac City councilor in 2001. In 2004, she topped the vice mayoral race as Mendoza’s running mate.
The 50-year-old Cabal admitted hitting Cabalu at least four times. "Yung una sapak, yung mga sumunod puro sampal (The first was a punch, the next ones were slaps in the face)," she said.
"We were friends before, but I did not know that it came with a price," she told The STAR in a cellphone interview.
Cabal said she got infuriated when Cabalu, referring to the blind item, turned to her and said, "Bakit, ikaw ba yan (Why, is that you)?"
"He may not respect me as vice mayor, but he should have respected me as a woman," she said.
Cabalu said he will file criminal and administrative charges against Cabal who, for her part, said she will confront the charges in court.