Cyber libel cases vs critic will expose, deter others – Bayambang Mayor

 By Mortz C. Ortigoza

BAYAMBANG – The five criminal cyber libel charges filled by the mayor here against a user of Face Book will deter those members of the popular social media who dishonor publicly other people.

Mayor Cezar T. Quiambao said that the cases of five counts of cyber libel he filled against Val Adriano Guevara, a resident here, will be used to request Face Book to unmask the persons behind the demolition jobs against him and others at the social media’s records kept at its headquarter at Menlo Park in California, United States.

LIBEL - Cyber Libel Law accused Val Adriano Guevara (left) and complainant Bayambang Mayor Cezar T. Quiambao. the latter sued Guevara with five counts of the cyber defamation crime.

 “If Face Book acts on it, it will become precedence where other offended people around the world can emulate what we have done here,” the mayor told this newspaper.

The fictitious Face Book’s account of Juana Malasakit  where she and other users who hide with aliases have been posting vitriol with impunity against Mayor Quiambao,  former councilor Levin Uy, who is the Executive Director of Quiambao's Kasama Kita sa Barangay, and other officials of the local government unit here.

“Dapat Kong may paratang kayo may kalakip na ebidinsiya o patunay sa mga sinasabi ninyo dahil walang saysay ang mga pinagdadakdak ninyo,” an exasperated Uy once argued with his detractors there who were hiding behind the cloak of anonymity.

Uy told Juana and her friends there that Val Guevarra was already detained by the police because of the five Cyber Crime Law violations. He said that even the litigation will be snail paced it however still give justice to the offended parties.
“Kayo Juana, Soltera et al ang next advice ko lang huwag sana ma involve ang mga anak ninyo o relatives and friends ninyo sa Account Management ninyo dahil sila ang sasabit dahil sa kalokohan ninyo,” he warned the persons about the determination of Mayor Quiambao to request Face Book to give the details of these individuals for their criminal prosecution.
 Uy said that Guevara was caught committing the libelous remarks against Quiambao when he forgot to change his real name to a fictitious account he allegedly been using to attack Quiambao.

The newspaper contacted Guevara at his account in Face Book to get his side but he did not reply to the query.

Presently, the account of Juana Malasakit had been deactivated by her user.

Under the Cyber Crime Prevention Act, libel, as quoted in the Revised Penal Code, is committed when a person makes, against another, a public and malicious imputation of a crime, or of a vice or defect, real or imaginary, or any act, omission, condition, status or circumstance tending to cause the dishonor, discredit or contempt of a natural or juridical person, or to blacken the memory of one who is dead.

Under the Act, the penalty for online libel “carries a two-fold increase in the maximum penalty in the RPC – from 4 years and 2 months to 8 years,” then Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno cited out in her concurring and dissenting separate opinion in a legal case.

The first media man in Pangasinan if not the Philippines who was charged with cyber libel several years ago was News Buster’s  publisher and columnist Ronel de Vera who accused on his series of posts at Face Book’s then Mangaldan National High School’s Principal Rizalino Agpalo of illegal cutting of trees inside the school.


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