DECLARATIONS of “my wall my posts” will not protect one from criminal charges and worst, being arrested and going through all the inconvenience of facing a criminal case as this wedding organizer has to when he was arrested while in a popular restaurant in Davao City at 3:10 p.m., Friday, July 27, 2018.
Wedding organizer Jefferson Cajes, 29, was arrested by the Philippine National Police Anti-Cybercrime Group Eastern Mindanao Unit through a warrant of arrest issued by Regional Trial Court 11 Branch 10 Judge Retrina Fuentes. He posted the P24,000 bail the following day, July 28, for his temporary liberty.
Cajes was indicted for one count of libel violation of Section 4(c)(4) in relation to Section 6 (Cyber-libel) of Republic Act 10175 and also in relation to Articles 353 and 355 (Libel) of the Revised Penal Code on June 5, 2018 as resolved by Prosecutor Daniel Fernandez.
This is the second libel case Cajes was indicted for with the same complainant, Elinor Marcelino.
Marcelino's second complaint stemmed from a comment thread that alluded to her among wedding organizers on Facebook from a photo posted by Jhunex Dasillo, also a freelance wedding coordinator and staff of fellow wedding coordinator Reymund Navarro aka Korine Navarro, showing Dasillo and Navarro and other colleagues. The thread was started by Cajes insinuating that Marcelino has already lost the trust of clients and thus Navarro is getting the contracts.
“(C)omplainant claims that what the respondent did to her destroyed her reputation as an event organizer and president of Davao Event Suppliers Association (DESA), discrediting her and made her an object of public ridicule,” the Office of the City Prosecution resolution read. The OCP resolution found probable cause to indict Cajes on this.
On January 21, 2016, the CPO also indicted Cajes for an earlier libel complaint by Marcelino where Cajes allegedly posted Marcelino's cutout photo that made her look like Janet Napoles, a most ridiculed persona at that time because of the latter's involvement in dubious multi-billion pesos government disbursements. There were other posts by the accused where Marcelino claimed she was described as a swine, a croc, a crook, and a tip-beggar.
This first case is still in court.