Former vice presidential candidate professor Walden Bello’s camp has filed a motion to quash to suspend the arraignment of the cyber libel case filed by former City Information Office head Jefry Tupas set on October 27, 2022.

“The motion is based on a very important protection that is afforded to the free exercise of your right to expression, which is enunciated in several doctrines established by the Supreme Court,” Atty. Luke Espiritu, legal counsel of Bello, said on October 27, 2022 during a press conference before their scheduled hearing on the same day.

Espiritu said that based on Borja vs. Court of Appeals and Vasquez vs Court of Appeals, public officials who were the offended party of the libel case and the comment made, which is the cause of the case, relates to the official conduct of the public official “the prosecution must show that there was actual malice”.

“Actual malice means that the commentary made despite the fact that it was false, there must be falsity of the thing that was communicated. It was communicated with the knowledge of falsity or with reckless disregard as to whether it was true or not,” Espiritu said.

Espiritu said even Tupas did not confirm the comments made by Bello on being involved in the drug raid were false.

“Nothing at all. Not even the private complainant has asserted that the things that were supposedly posted on the internet were false. They have not done that, they have not even denied it,” Espiritu said.

Bello’s camp believes he was singled out for judicial prosecution and Bello claimed that “this is imminently a political case.”

“I was simply performing what a democratic republic candidate for election should do, which is to point out the problems in the record of your opponents so that they can respond to the criticisms of their record,” Bello said.

He said Vice-President Sara Duterte did not attend any public debate and these criticisms were not answered.

“Napakalahaga ng give and take of criticism in a democracy (It is very important to practice the give and take of criticisms in a democracy). This is why this case goes beyond me, why has it elicited so much international protest? Why has it elicited so much domestic protest?” Bello said.

Meanwhile, Bello said there are 50 members of the European Parliament who have shown support to denounce the cyber libel cases filed against him.

“It was not because it was me, but because people feel that freedom of speech which is important in all democracies must be protected no matter who is being charged with cyber libel,” Bello said.

Aside from the cyber libel case, the City Council of Davao also declared him as persona non grata and accused him of being a narco politician. KSD