Saturday, April 14, 2007 Fiscal drops Castro’s libel case vs. BI chief
THE Office of the Cebu City Prosecutor has dismissed the libel charges a prosecutor earlier filed after getting accused of maintaining a fixer at the Bureau of Immigration (BI) regional office.
Cleared in the resolution penned by Assistant City Prosecutor Rogelio del Prado and approved by City Prosecutor Nicolas Sellon were BI Regional Chief Geronimo Rosas and Sun.Star Cebu reporter Elias O. Baquero.
The complaint stemmed from the June 22, 2006 article Baquero wrote on how Assistant City Prosecutor Mary Ann Castro allegedly hired and maintained a “non-government woman” to facilitate the processing of visas at the BI, while Castro was detailed there by the justice department.
The woman’s statement was contained in an affidavit submitted to the Office of the Ombudsman-Visayas.
Castro said the article, which was published with by a caricature showing her with an “enlarged” face, conditions the mind of the reader that she has performed “a discreditable activity inside the BI 7 office” and that she usurped an official authority by “accepting visa applications and conducting hearings thereon.”
Newsworthy
In clearing Baquero, however, the office said: “There is no denying that the questioned articles deal with matters of public interest. Respondent being a reporter for a daily expectedly would report newsworthy matters and, being so, would necessarily have a justifiable motive as it is his profession to do so.”
“For Rosas, there is no clear proof that he is the source of the information against the complainant or acted in conspiracy with the respondent to print the questioned article other than by mere unproven conclusions based on suspicion,” the resolution said.
In her complaint, Castro said the article was the product of conspiracy between the reporter and Rosas, whom she identified as the source.
Rosas, in his counter-affidavit, said the filing of the libel complaint “came as no surprise,” adding that Castro blamed him for a petition to throw her out of the BI.
Baquero, for his part, said the article was neither defamatory nor libelous. (KNR)
