Sunday Post: By dragging the names of two editors of Bohol’s leading newspapers in an article which a provincial board member claimed to have been libellous, the complainant found himself at the receiving of a lecture from a city prosecutor that a “ public official must not be too thin-skinned with reference to comments of his official actsâ€.
Quoting from a landmark case in US vs Bustos, City Prosecutor I Neferteri Cristobal threw out the libel case filed by Board Member Jose Veloso against Peter Dejaresco, associate editor of the Bohol Chronicle and the Post editor-publisher.
The libel case stemmed from an article written by Fred Fuertes, municipal information officer-designate of Maribojoc describing Veloso as a non-performing mayor of the municipality. It appeared in the two papers as a press release from the MPIO.
Protesting that he was not a non-performing executive in his own stint as Maribojoc mayor, Veloso sued Fuertes and the two editors for libel.
In dismissing the case, the lady prosecutor said her office found the alleged defamatory statement did not constitute libel. She said the subject article merely expressed an opinion of the writer on a matter of public interest concerning herein private complainant who is a public official himself. She added that her office believed that the article was privileged in character.
What drove Veloso to file the libel case against the three was the phrase “come backing board member who is a non-performing mayorâ€.
According to the complainant, the sentence was meant to defame him considering that he has been mayor for 10 years and a provincial board member for nine straight years without defeat.
The former mayor further averred that in his term as mayor for 10 years, he has allegedly contributed much for the development of Maribojoc.
Linkback:
https://tubagbohol.mikeligalig.com/index.php?topic=25737.0
Topic: Libel vs Bohol newspapers editors thrashed by fiscal (Read 1342 times)