Thursday, December 14, 2006 Bantayan VM, kin file libel case v. land claimant, 2 journalists
IRKED over published news stories calling them “land grabbers,” the Escarios of Bantayan town filed separate libel complaints against a land claimant and two Sun.Star Cebu journalists.
The complainants are Bantayan Vice Mayor Remedios Escario, her son Teresito and Dale Escario, a relative of the vice mayor and the son of the late Jesus Escario, a former mayor of Bantayan.
Named respondents of the complaints are landowner Honesto Gapud Jr., Sun.Star Cebu editor-in-chief Pachico A. Seares, and justice beat reporter Karlon N. Rama.
Gapud’s sister Marissa Gapud-Ceniza was also named a defendant in two of the complaints.
Remedios, through lawyer Nathaniel Clarus and Dale, filed separate complaints before the Cebu Provincial Prosecutor’s Office while Bacolod-based Teresito charged Seares, Rama and Gapud before the Bacolod City Prosecutor’s Office.
Remedios also asked for P575,000 in moral damages and attorney’s fees while Dale demanded P275,000.
The charges stemmed from an article published in Sun.Star Cebu last Dec. 13, 2005.
Complaint
The article was based on a complaint filed by siblings Gapud and Ceniza before the Office of the Ombudsman-Visayas accusing the Escarios of “grabbing vast tracts of farmland entrusted to them as administrators by the owners.”
But Seares said the two elements of libel, malice and defa-mation, were clearly lacking in the published news stories. He explained that there is no malice on the side of Sun.Star in printing the story as he and Rama do not have a grudge against the Escarios because they do not even know them personally.
There cannot be defamation either since what was published was only based on the complaint before the anti-graft office. “They should not drag us in their conflict with the Gapuds,” said Seares.
The owners of the assailed lot were spouses Honesto and Lourdes Gapud Sr., the parents of siblings Honesto Jr. and Marissa.
Remedios was the administrator of the farmland, a job she acquired from her late husband, and was entrusted to her from the deceased Gapuds.
The Gapud heirs complained further that the Escarios used a part of the lot as housing sites for their supporters, while the rest were tilled and disposed of as if the Escarios owned these.
Remedios, in an affidavit, denied the charges. She pointed out that it was done with intent to demolish her good name and reputation.
Accusation
She accused the Gapuds of hiding the fact the two siblings are not the only heirs to the subject farmland as they have an older brother who was born out of wedlock.
The vice mayor noted that the younger Gapuds were probably irked that she kept reminding them to equally partition the properties left by their parents and to include their older brother.
“In branding me as a land grabber, the same constitute as a public and malicious imputation of a crime, or a defect which is real or imaginary, and made only to cause dishonor, discredit, or contempt on my part,” Remedios’ affidavit read.
“So damning was this article to our reputation,” Teresito said in his own affidavit.
He also said that the publication was premature. Remedios supported Teresito’s claim that when the news story was published, there was no docket number on the complaint yet.
But staff reporter Rama disagreed.
“It was a formal complaint, subscribed and sworn to by a competent individual,” he said.
Rama also said that no malice was intended in publishing the story as he does not know the Escarios personally. (JGA)
