SC acquits Lastimosa in libel case filed by Gov. Garcia

CEBU, Philippines — The Supreme Court (SC) has overturned the Court of Appeals’ decision convicting The FREEMAN columnist Leo Lastimosa for libel that Cebu Governor Gwendolyn Garcia had filed against him more than 15 years ago.

“Wherefore, in view of the foregoing, the Petition for Review on Certiorari is hereby granted. The Decision dated July 27, 2016 and Resolution dated August 2, 2017 of the Court of Appeals in CA-G.R. CEBCR No. 02233 are hereby reversed and set aside. Accordingly, petitioner Leo A. Lastimosa is acquitted of the crime charged. Let entry of judgment be issued immediately,” read the 18-page decision of the SC Third Division that was handed down on December 5, 2022 but was uploaded at the SC website on April 3, 2023.

Garcia’s complaint stemmed from Lastimosa’s column “Arangkada” published on The FREEMAN dated June 29, 2007 entitled “Si Doling Kawatan” or “Doling a Thief.”

In that article, Lastimosa, also a broadcast journalist of radio dyAB, described Doling as a barangay captain, a fishmonger, loudmouth, abrasive, cruel, and arrogant.

During the arraignment at the lower court, Lastimosa, who was then proclaimed by the governor as the pride of Cebu in the field of media for the year 2006 by granting him the most prestigious Garbo sa Sugbo Award, pleaded not guilty of the crime charged.

According to the prosecution, Lastimosa had been a constant and vocal critic of Garcia which resulted in the filing of several other libel cases against him.

The prosecution asserts that the article "Si Doling Kawatan" was about Garcia, and that Lastimosa wrote the same to tarnish her reputation as governor, and as a Cebuana woman, mother and grandmother.

The prosecution also submitted some of Lastimosa's older articles as documentary evidence to prove that Lastimosa had intimated in the past that Garcia was corrupt, ill-tempered, or foul-mouthed.

The prosecution also presented Glenn Baricuatro, lawyer Pacheco Seares and the governor as witnesses.

Baricuatro was presented to prove that a third person would immediately know that Garcia was the one referred to in the article "Si Doling Kawatan.”

Seares was presented to prove that, in his media class at the University of the Philippines, nine of his 15 students observed that a plain reading of the said article pointed to Garcia as the character "Doling."

For his part, Lastimosa maintained that the article was merely a work of fiction in the third person narrative form.

He said that "Doling" did not refer to Garcia since the personal circumstances of "Doling" were different from Garcia's.

However, the Regional Trial Court Branch 14 of Cebu City on August 30, 2013 convicted Lastimosa of libel and slapped him with a P6,000-fine with subsidiary imprisonment in case of insolvency and was further ordered to pay Garcia the amount P2 million in moral damages and to pay the costs of these proceedings.

In convicting Lastimosa, the RTC explained that all the elements of the crime had been established by the prosecution beyond reasonable doubt.

The RTC gave full credence to Baricuatro's testimony that he feels or believes that the character "Doling" was actually Garcia. The RTC also considered Seares' testimony that nine of his 15 students thought that the article was about Garcia as additional proof that Garcia was sufficiently identified in the article.

The RTC also ruled that Lastimosa's older articles about Garcia further established that he views Garcia to be "[a] thief, corrupt, arrogant, vindictive, ill-tempered, foul -mouthed, and cruel" which were the words used to describe "Doling" in the said article.

Aggrieved, Lastimosa, by way of motion for reconsideration, appealed his conviction to the Court of Appeals, which also affirmed the latter’s conviction.

The CA, in its Resolution dated August 2, 2017, concurred with the RTC decision contending that the prosecution was able to establish all the elements of libel.

But the CA ruling modified as to the amount of damages awarded to Garcia wherein it lowered to P500,000 from P2 million.

Aggrieved with his second conviction, Lastimosa elevated the case to the SC by way of a petition for certiorari.

In discussing the elements of libel, the SC said that for an imputation to be libelous it must be defamatory, it must be libelous, it must be given publicity and the victim must be identifiable. Absent any of these elements precludes the commission of the crime of libel.

Regarding the first element, the High Court said that the article “Si Doling Kawatan,” is indeed defamatory where the character Doling was described in the article as “abrasive,” “cruel,” “arrogant,” and worst, “a thief.”

As to the second element-the element of malice-the High Court similarly finds it was present as the law presumes malice because of the defamatory nature of the imputation.

The third element, which is the requirement of publicity, is likewise present as Lastimosa does not deny writing or publishing the said article.

 “The last element-element of identifiability of the victim-was however, not established beyond reasonable doubt,” the High Court said adding, “in the present case, there is no question that Garcia was not explicitly referred to in the article “Si Doling Kawatan.”

The SC said that Baricuatro based his “belief” merely on the auditory similarities between “Doling” and “Gwendolyn.”

“The similarities in how Doling and Gwendolyn sound when pronounced cannot, standing alone, be made the basis for establishing the link between the character Doling and Garcia,” the SC said.

The SC added that even Seares’ testimony is insufficient to establish said link.

“The core of his testimony - that nine of his 15 students in a media studies class recognized "Doling" to be Garcia - does not establish anything in evidence. None of the said nine students was presented as a witness, and the defense therefore did not have the opportunity to cross-examine them as regards the circumstances leading to such identification. The fact that those nine students recognized "Doling" as Garcia cannot be admitted into evidence as they constitute hearsay testimony,” part of the SC decision reads.

The SC said that none of the two witnesses who were meant to establish that third persons could recognize Doling as Gracia was able to confirm beyond reasonable doubt that it indeed referred to her.

It further stated that neither do Lastimosa’s previous articles sufficiently establish the said fact, for they are not the articles subject of this libel case, and it does not necessarily follow that because he had previously written about Garcia that the latter would automatically be the subject of the article in question.

 “In other words, that Doling refers to Garcia is not a logical conclusion of the fact that Lastimosa had previously written about Garcia,” said SC Associate Justice Alfredo Benjamin Caguioa, and concurred by Associate Justices Henri Jean Paul Inting (chairperson), Samuel Gaerlan, and Maria Filomena Singh. /GAN (FREEMAN)