MANILA, Philippines (Updated 12:56 p.m.) — A Quezon City court on Tuesday convicted Baguio journalist Frank Cimatu of cyber libel over a Facebook post pertaining to former Agriculture Secretary Manny Piñol.
Quezon City Regional Trial Court Branch 93 sentenced Cimatu with imprisonment of six months and one day to five years, five months and 11 days and ordered him to pay Piñol P300,000 as moral damages.
“Following a painstaking review of the pieces of evidence presented by both parties, the Court finds that the evidence of the prosecution satisfies the test of moral certainty and is sufficient to support a conviction,” Acting Presiding Judge Evangeline Cabochan-Santos said in her 19-page decision.
The court found that Cimatu’s Facebook post where he said that Piñol “got rich by P21-M in 6 months” was defamatory as it “appears to be an imputation of a crime.”
The court also found that Cimatu acted with malice in writing the Facebook post, even if it said that the post was privileged communication as it targeted a public official as the journalist “failed to show any proof to establish that his post was done in good faith.”
Cimatu is at least the third Rappler journalist convicted of cyber libel, following Nobel laureate and CEO Maria Ressa and former researcher-writer Reynaldo Santos Jr.
This decision by a lower court can still be appealed all the way to the Supreme Court.
‘Attack on all’
“An attack on one is an attack on all. No one should be silenced for being critical on the most pressing issues,” Rappler said following Cimatu’s conviction.
The National Union of Journalists of the Philippines for its part said it supports Cimatu's plan to appeal the decision as it sees "no malice" in the journalist's Facebook post.
"With due respect to the local court's decision, NUJP maintains that the right to free expression and press freedom is paramount especially when exercised in relation to public officials," the NUJP said as it noted that Piñol also threatened and used derogatory remarks against Cimatu.
The NUJP added: "Cimatu's case is proof how government officials use libel as a weapon to harass and intimidate journalists."
Media freedom groups, a handful of lawmakers and UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of opinion and expression Irene Khan have called on the Philippines to decriminalize libel.
The NUJP has counted at least 28 libel or cyber libel cases against journalists since mid-2016, with a number of them having been filed by politicians and government officials.
In 2012, the United Nations Committee on Human Rights declared that the continued criminalization of libel in the Philippines violated the country’s obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
Journalists in the country have long called to decriminalize libel, along with the graver cyber libel offense stipulated in the Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012.
The Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism in 2014 had warned of the "chilling effect" it may have on free expression, while media watchdog Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility said it "throws such a wide net it penalizes even legitimate expressions of opinion online." — Xave Gregorio