by Germelina Lacorte
On the eve of May 3, World Press Freedom Day, Davao journalists trooped to the Regional Trial Court (RTC) for the hearing of the motion to reopen the case of Davao broadcaster Alexander “Alex” Adonis, jailed on a libel suit filed by House Speaker Prospero Nograles.
“No journalist should be jailed for doing his job,” read the bright stickers the journalists wore, prompting Helen Macag-calat, chief of the probation and parole office, to ask who was the journalist in jail.
When they told her it was Adonis, Macagcalat immediately recognized the name among the list of inmates granted parole earlier this year.
“We already have an order for his discharge,” she said, showing reporters a copy of the order issued by the justice department’s Board of Pardons and Parole. It was approved on Dec. 11 last year but Macagcalat’s office only received a copy in February this year.
Adonis, however, was not aware of the order. Macagcalat said it was the Davao del Norte provincial parole office that was tasked to inform him of the case. But the revival of another case filed against him by Jeanette Lomanta-Leuterio had put his release on hold.
Leuterio’s case, which sprang from the same libel case filed by Nograles, was revived six years after it was filed at the precise moment when Adonis could have availed himself of parole, having spent six months in jail.
Wary over where his case was heading and languishing for over a year in jail, Adonis brought his case to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR) last month, questioning the country’s criminal libel law as a violation of its responsibility to uphold free expression.
Adonis’s lawyer Harry Roque, chair of the international lawyers’ advocacy group Center for International Law (CenterLaw), said jailing a journalist for libel is inconsistent with the country’s treaty obligations to uphold press freedom under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).
The filing of the complaint before the UN, invoking the freedom of expression clause of the ICCPR to challenge Philippine libel laws, is the first in Asia, and should test how well Philippine libel laws can stand the scrutiny of the international human rights body. It was filed when libel, a crime in the Philippines, has been increasingly used by powerful politicians to harass journalists and to silence critical media, according to the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP).
Represented by his brother Colly, Adonis filed the motion before the UNCHR by email at 11:35 a.m. of April 18, only hours after he had attended a pre-trial hearing of the libel suit filed against him by Leuterio.
Aside from Adonis, the signatories to the complaint include the press freedom group Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility and the NUJP.
“We’re filing the case, not only in the name of Adonis but also in the name of all media people in the Philippines and in the name of press freedom in the whole world,” Roque said. He also said that the jailing of Adonis for libel not only violated freedom of expression but also the freedom of thought provision (Article 18) of the ICCPR and the right to equal protection of the law and the prohibition against discrimination (Article 26).
“Criminal libel in the Philippines is contrary to freedom of expression and is inconsistent with Philippine treaty obligations in the ICCPR,” he said. He argued that Nograles, as a public figure, had ceased to be a private person the moment he accepted public office.
Roque also said that the UN complaint was filed only as a last resort, after Congress failed to enact a law decriminalizing libel.
“Considering that the present Speaker of the House is the same man that filed the case that convicted Adonis, we need to explore other options and tap all available international remedies,” Roque said, referring to Nograles.
Nograles wrested control of the Speakership of the House of Representatives early this year, ousting former House Speaker Jose de Venecia Jr. a few months after De Venecia’s son exposed the controversial NBN-ZTE deal late last year.
Roque said that hopes for Congress to pass a law to decriminalize libel have dimmed with Nograles as Speaker of the House.
Adonis was sentenced to four and a half years for libel early last year for a series of commentaries titled the “Burlesque King.” Adonis, who was hospitalized early this year for an ailment contracted while in prison, showed up at the Regional Trial Court Branch 14 to face charges on the second libel complaint filed by Leuterio.
Handcuffed and wearing a blue prison uniform, a gaunt Adonis sat side by side with cell phone-snatching and murder suspects.
Roque sought the dismissal of Leuterio’s complaint on the basis of the Supreme Court ruling discouraging the lower courts from imposing jail terms for libel. He argued that there is no reason for the state to continue prosecuting Adonis because he has already been serving time in jail.
But state prosecutor Vic-toriano M. Bello Jr. inhibited himself, effectively moving the case to another pre-trial hearing on May 26.
Invoking the same Supreme Court ruling that prevents journalists from being jailed for libel, Roque also sought to reopen Adonis’s case. When journalists trooped to the RTC for the hearing, however, they learned that the hearing for the case had been postponed, as the RTC Judge had ordered the prosecution to comment on the motion filed by Adonis’s lawyers.
Lawyer Romel Bagares, Center Law executive director, challenged Nograles, who recently said he was supporting the decriminalization of libel, to take concrete steps to set Adonis free. Roque also dared Nograles to persuade Leuterio to drop her complaint to allow Adonis to avail of his parole.
Adonis is not the only journalist to be harassed for libel in the country, although he is one of the very few who had been convicted. Jose Miguel “Mike” Arroyo, the husband of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, had filed 11 libel suits against 46 journalists which he later dropped in the face of a journalists’ class suit alleging that he was abusing his right to sue.
Adonis’s conviction for libel has highlighted the urgent need to pass the bills currently pending in Congress that would decriminalize libel. According to NUJP- Davao, the victory of Adonis will mean a victory for journalists in the fight to decriminalize libel. “We would like the international courts to heed our call in decriminalizing libel in the country,” an NUJP statement said. “We would like the government to be held accountable for Adonis’s case before the UNCHR.”
- Germelina Lacorte is a correspondent of the Philippine Daily Inquirer and associate editor of Davao Today. |
