Wednesday, April 18, 2007 Guv sues Lastimosa over print comment
CEBU Gov. Gwendolyn Garcia filed a libel complaint against a Cebu-based radio broadcaster, television anchorman and newspaper columnist for, among other things, allegedly imputing that she is “unreasonable, ill-tempered and bad-mouthed.”
The governor, through the family-owned Garcia Garcia Law Office, charged ABS-CBN’s Leo Lastimosa before the Office of the Cebu City Prosecutor last April 16 and said that the broadcaster has “consistently manifested contempt and ill will on my person and family in the recent past.”
As presented in the complaint, Lastimosa, in his column in The Freeman last April 14, allegedly accused the governor of being unreasonable, ill-tempered and foul-mouthed, as evidenced in the way she berated people, including media practitioners, who criticized the Cebu International Convention Center (CICC) project.
Contractors and their workers weren’t spared from her insults, Garcia quoted Lastimosa as saying in his column.
Lastimosa, according to the complaint, also depicted the governor as a fair-weather friend and someone who uses her position “to dispense unwarranted favors.”
The column, the governor added, also portrayed her as being “culpable or directly responsible for the perceived anomalies attendant to the P2-billion expenditures” for Cebu’s hosting of an international summit last January.
“I think the case is her way of discouraging further public scrutiny of the CICC controversy,” Lastimosa said in a statement. “She cannot silence me.”
Lastimosa manages the radio station dyAB and is an official of the Kapisanan ng mga Brodkaster sa Pilipinas Cebu Chapter.
He has criticized the governor’s pet project for 2006, the P515-million CICC that is now the subject of an ombudsman inquiry.
The governor, in her complaint, also countered allegations made in the column, saying “there was never an instance that members of the media who criticized the CICC were `gibinaboy og kasaba’ by me.”
“Nor did I subject the workers of the CICC to indignities and insults,” she said.
She also denied that she has chosen to be silent on the lamppost issue and that she has distanced herself from Mandaue City Mayor Thadeo Ouano, who is currently under preventive suspension.
“In this election period, the opposite is true. Any opportune time, I am in the company of Mayor Ouano and his son, Jonkie,” she said.
She said she filed a complaint for libel to seek redress for “the unmitigated and unabated assault on my person and honor.” (KNR)
