New update:
From a legal standpoint, a civil suit for damages may be made against those responsible for posting on the Internet a controversial and unauthorized video of a rectal surgery performed at a government-run hospital in Cebu City, Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez said Thursday.
Gonzalez said the hospital in which the surgery was made, the Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center, should also be held accountable because it allowed people to watch in the operating room.
"There's clearly a case for damages. And the hospital would seem to be liable because why were people allowed to watch in the operating room?" Gonzalez told reporters.
Asked for the nature of the hospital's liability, he said that it could be sanctioned administratively.
"It's just like the liability of a hotel, for example, if you stay in a hotel and your valuables were lost," he added.
The video reportedly showed doctors extracting a perfume canister from the man's rectum. People in the background were supposedly heard cheering. The video was posted on the video sharing website YouTube.com.
According to him, the civil case for damages could be based on the violation of human relations under the Civil Code. He noted that the video of the surgery was posted on the Internet and shown in various parts of the world.
He cited Article 19 of the Civil Code, which states that "every person must, in the exercise of his rights and in the performance of his duties, act with justice, give everyone his due, and observe honesty and good faith."
He also pointed to Article 26, which states that several acts, including the vexation or humiliation of another person based on his religious beliefs, lowly station in life, physical defect or other personal condition, could produce a cause of action for damages.
The Board of Medicine and the Professional Regulatory Commission could also take action against those behind the video, he added.
Gonzalez said he also believed it was possible for the patient to pursue a criminal case for libel, if he wanted to.
But he also believed that the man who put the perfume canister in the patient's rectum was the one "more liable," and could possibly be charged for mutilation. But he added that the man should be found first.
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