MikeLigalig.com

By Beverly T. Natividad
Philippine Daily Inquirer

Joseph Estrada Thursday filed a libel suit against tycoon Alfonso Yuchengco and the Philippine Daily Inquirer, singling out the newspaper for its report about the businessman confirming a senator’s exposé that the deposed President had bullied Yuchengco into selling his stake in a firm that controlled Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT).

Yuchengco’s sale in 1998 of his stake in Philippine Telecommunications Investment Corp. (PTIC), the biggest shareholder in PLDT, allowed Manuel V. Pangilinan’s group, the Hong Kong-based First Pacific Co., to gain control of the country’s biggest telecommunications firm.

Flanked by his son, San Juan Mayor Joseph Victor “JV” Ejercito, and his lawyers, Estrada, who was ousted in January 2001, filed the libel suit against Yuchengco, Inquirer publisher Isagani Yambot, editor in chief Letty Jimenez-Magsanoc, and reporters Daxim Lucas, Christine Avendaño and Doris Dumlao.

The former President filed the case at the office of San Juan City Prosecutor Tomas T. Ricalde.

In his complaint, Estrada cited the Inquirer’s Sept. 16 banner story, “Erap bullied me, says Yuchengco—Taipan confirms coercion in PLDT deal,” which carried Yuchengco’s statement confirming how the then president threatened and intimidated him into selling his holdings in PTIC to First Pacific.

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