Beauty battle

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the boycott of the Belo Medical Clinic being urged by lawyer slash activist slash columnist slash funny man Argee Guevara.

I had asked Argee why he was orchestrating this boycott, and he rattled off some statements that I was too scared to reprint. As I said then, I was afraid that if I did, I might get sued for libel. 

Meanwhile, Argee also made the very same statements (and more) in his Facebook posts, some of them funny, some of them outrageous, all of them trademark Argee. Well, as it turns out, those statements have landed Argee in court - as a respondent in a criminal case for libel filed by the glamour gal Vicky Belo.

To recall, Argee is the lawyer for a patient who claims she underwent a botched butt implant at Belo's clinic. His client was injected with hydrogel, a substance that, at that time, was allegedly not yet approved by the Bureau of Food and Drugs. The hydrogel reportedly went to various places in her body, and she landed back in the hospital to have those removed. 

Argee has taken the cudgels for his client pretty seriously, as he's been using the social networking site of Facebook as his vehicle to vent. And you know how it is when people vent, especially to their friends - discretion is hardly the main consideration. So, Argee's been pretty hard-hitting, and I'm sure Vicky wasn't happy with the negative publicity this generated. Through heartthrob lawyer Adel Tamano, Vicky has gone on the offensive.

On his part, Argee says he welcomes the libel suit. The way he sees it, it's another opportunity for the public to come to grips with the always possible notion that their favorite cosmetic surgery clinic might be performing operations with unlicensed medical practitioners. As Argee says it, "colorum clinics" are now "destroying the country's medical tourism industry and earning for the country the moniker of being Asia's No. 1 Chop Shop."

Now, just because I said I might get sued for libel by reprinting his allegations doesn't mean I think what he did was libelous. If I had reprinted those in this column, a traditional form of 'writing', then maybe, I could have been sued for libel. (Who knows, it might even be in the offing - Adel, sweetie, you're not going to sue me are you?)

But posting these very same statements in a Facebook account is very different. Argee makes this distinction, because supposedly, a post is limited to your friends, and is only found in that ethereal medium that is the web. It's not in 'hard' form, which is the traditional form of writing contemplated by our long-dead lawmakers who crafted the Revised Penal Code. And since criminal laws are construed very strictly against the State and very liberally against the accused, what Vicky and Adel are now proposing to do is to extend the traditional scope of libel to the internet, a medium which didn't exist in 19-kopong kopong.

Argee says he's happy, as this will elicit jurisprudence regarding internet-based libels. In fact, that earned another Facebook post, saying Vicky failed to differentiate "between free speech or slander when suing …a Facebook user for his shout outs and status updates. Such …results in mistaking Facebook for Erasebook".

And Argee's counsel has also responded, saying "The libel case filed by Dr. Belo needs a serious facelift before it could even be dignified in any court of law. The pleading itself reads and looks like a failed surgery on the laws of libel."

I love the rhetoric and the medical allusions. I wonder how many puns they can make out of this mess. Meanwhile, stay tuned, as last Friday, Argee submitted his counter-affidavit in the suit. Next up is the good doctora, who is supposedly going to file her reply on October 8.

At the very least, I'm sure we'll be seeing intelligent arguments coming from the lawyers of both camps.