LFC files motion for reconsideration on libel case ruling

THE Lapanday Foods Corporation (LFC) filed a motion for reconsideration before the City Prosecutor's Office (CPO) appealing its resolution that junked the libel case against the editors-in-chief of two local publications and a union leader in Davao City.

In their motion for reconsideration dated March 6, Lawyer Leilani C. Yangyang-Espejo, counsel for LFC, said the CPO "misappreciated the facts and the law in the case" and that the "offended party is sufficiently and clearly identified."

Prosecutor Gaye Cañete-Magdagasang dismissed the case against Stella Estremera of Sun.Star Davao, Marietta Siongco of Mindanao Daily Mirror and Romelito Pablo, president of Lapanday Box and Plastic Plant Workers Union-Association of Democratic Labor Organizations-Kilusang Mayo Uno, for insufficiency of evidence.

Magdagasang said it was not clearly indicated in the stories published as to who the persons in the Lapanday management were referred to as the offended party.

But, Yangyang-Espejo said when Pablo mentioned Lapanday for at least four times, he referred to and singled out the LFC as it is the only company with whom the union had a pending CBA negotiation.

"Lapanday Property is not even mentioned in the newspaper article so it is remote that it could be the one referred to, while Lapanday Foods Corporation and Lapanday Box Plant which are mentioned, are actually one and the same juridical person," Yangyang-Espejo said.

The LFC counsel said the imputation caused by publishing the articles in two newspapers with the phrase "the Lapanday management would result to violent means as what they did in the 1980's when they hired the group of Manero and other rightist group in butchering labor leaders before is not impossible" tends dishonor, discredit and blacken the reputation of LFC as a corporate person itself.

It can be recalled that the LFC had already denied the statements of Pablo linking the company to the alleged killing of labor leaders in the 1980s.

"The imputation is especially defamatory against Lapanday Foods Corporation as a juridical person because it is being portrayed as a corporation managed by criminals and murders,” she said, adding that anyone who would read it will create impression that the corporation implements a policy of violence.

Yangyang-Espejo also requested the CPO for a clarificatory hearing to fully ventilate the crucial issues raised in their motion for reconsideration. (Arianne Caryl N. Casas)