MANUEL “Boy M” Mejorada, whose conviction for libel by the Pasay Regional Trial Court in September 2017 was affirmed last Oct. 10 by the Court of Appeals, is a former journalist in Iloilo City. At a 2014 hearing of the Senate Blue Ribbon committee, Boy M called his city “a bird’s nest of corruption.”
When he testified at the Senate, he was identified as former provincial administrator of Iloilo. The political label was what senators, Ilonggos and others saw: not his journalism experience. Boy M worked at the Capitol and served as spokesman of the governor and 2010 campaign manager of the Liberal Party in the province. The fresh images were what the public saw.
The articles the Pasay RTC and the C.A. found defamatory were published not in a newspaper or a news organization’s website but on Facebook and his blog. The“defamatory” posts linked Sen. Franklin Drilon to corruption in infrastructure projects in Ilo-Ilo City. Mejorada had worked previously as Drilon’s consultant and media relations officer in Iloilo.
Not considered were Mejorada’s stint as editor of West Visayas DailyTimes (long defunct), his reporting work that included a 1985 article in “Asiaweek” (also defunct) which prompted Unicef to help hungry children in Negros, and his fellowships with the Lopez Jaena project sponsored by U.P. College of Mass Communications and Konrad Adenauer Foundation, and with Poynter Institute of Media Studies in Florida.
Political color
Up front in people’s awareness were his recent liaisons with politicians, his alleged constant changing of party lanes and persistent hounding of “corrupt” politicos in his black list. Notably: a plunder charge against Ilonggo Senator Drilon and city officials for alleged overpricing of the Iloilo Convention Center and other city projects.
That must have made a difference in the libel case in which Mejorada was convicted. He no longer benefited from “privilege communication,” which generally gives journalists more elbow room and stronger punch in reporting and commenting on issues of public interest.
Prosecutors and even judges at times forget that the protection on issues of public interest is given to all those sued for libel, not just journalists.
Private interest
Maybe because a journalist comes to court with their “Press” label -- which reminds everyone that media is the public’s surrogate -- and the support of their media outlet, as well as the fact that the work that is being assailed in the lawsuit was printed in a newspaper or carried online under an established news site.
Mejorada wrote a blog and in Facebook. While he still had the knack for investigative journalism, Boy M was writing as a plain citizen and, this changes the game, bearing grudges and other personal or party interests.
He no longer had the public presumption of noble motive generally attached to journalism. Though what he wrote was purportedly to protect public interest, as it involved alleged acts of corruption, it was also tainted by personal and party biases because of his actual ties to political figures and groups.
Cebu City case
For the same interests, Mejorada might have also been carried away, dumping journalism norms, with no editor, publisher or newsroom policy to moderate him. Which must have somehow influenced the RTC that found him guilty and the C.A. that affirmed the finding.
That was illustrated in the recent case of Abbey Canturias in Cebu City , a former news reporter who worked as aide and publicist for then mayor Mike Rama. He was convicted of libel for pretty much the same reason that Mejorada in Iloilo City was. Journalism values must have been dumped when they switched jobs.