PAM BARICUATRO WAS NOT YET GOVERNOR when she posted the “offensive” material. The year was 2023 -- from August to September -- when certificates of candidacy were not yet filed (deadline was October 1-8, 2024).
By mid-2023 though, Baricuatro, with her friend the late Rowena Burden, was already criticizing then governor Gwen Garcia in social media.
3 ‘OFFENSIVE’ LINES. There were three comments that Baricuatro posted on Facebook in August and September 2023, which prompted ex-provincial jail warden, now businessman-vlogger Byron Garcia to sue for cyber-libel before the provincial prosecutor, alleging he was defamed.
Picking out the most offensive line in each count, one can quickly spot these:
[] August 29, 2023 – “Brother who is also inferior to us in all aspects???” “Dili ko kurakot pareha nila.”
[] September 6, 2023 – “Wee, naa siyay gipach..a sa CPDRC.”
[] September 11, 2023: “OMG… Mao siguro bakukang na ang utok ning taohana.”
ONLY ONE COUNT. Three counts of violation of Republic Act 10175, the cyber-crime law, and the Revised Penal Code were alleged in Byron Garcia’s complaint against Baricuatro before the Office of the Provincial Prosecutor in Cebu.
In a January 9, 2024 resolution, OPP indicted Baricuatro in only one count.
The oral sex at the jail? Or the beetle in the brain? (The Cebuano-Bisaya terms for the two are colorful and more graphic and gross.)
Guess which was picked for the charge sheet.
THE "KURAKOT" SLUR in Pam’s August 29, 2023 post was the OPP choice as basis for indicting Pam. Finding “probable cause,” the prosecutors filed the information against the governor.
The “kurakot” remark, Baricuatro argued in her motion for reconsideration of the OPP ruling, was common language among feuding political families.
OPP rejected that argument and denied the motion for recon on January 31, 2024. Thus, Pam appealed by filing a petition for review with DOJ.
JUSTICE DEPARTMENT CLEARS GUV PAM. DOJ, in a resolution on the governor’s petition for review, dated April 20, 2026 and publicized this week, reversed the local prosecutor’s finding and ordered OPP to withdraw the information against Guv Pam.
LAWYERS SAW IT DIFFERENTLY. Lawyers at the provincial prosecutors office and lawyers at DOJ looked at the same facts and law, as well as the same Supreme Court jurisprudence.
Yet their rulings differed. Cebu OPP believed there was probable cause for Baricuatro to be indicted for one count of cyber-libel. DOJ believed she cannot be held liable.
BYRON NOT IDENTIFIED; DEFAMATION NOT AUTOMATIC: The reasons cited by DOJ cited in throwing out Byron Garcia’s lawsuit.
The Baricuatro post, DOJ resolved, did not “specifically pertain” to Byron Garcia.
“Nothing in the record indicates” that Guv Pam’s defamatory statement “was attributed” to him. No explicit mention that Byron was “kurakot,” DOJ said.
Pam used “nila” (them): “Dili kurakot pareha nila.”
Citing Yuchengko vs. Manila Chronicle, the DOJ echoed the SC precept that “for an action to be actionable, the defamatory statement must be shown to refer specifically and personally to the complainant.” A general reference to an institution or collective body “does not suffice absent a clear and particularized identification.”
The DOJ ruling, citing Lopez vs. People, said “personal hurt or embarrassment or offense, even if real, is not automatically equivalent to defamation.”
INSULTING WORDS NOT ENOUGH. “Merely insulting words are not actionable as libel or slander per se.” DOJ, quoting Lopez vs. People, said, “Mere general words of abuse, however, opprobrious, ill-natured, or vexatious, whether written or spoken, do not constitute bases for an action for defamation in the absence of an allegation for special damages.”
“The fact that the language was offensive to the complainant did not make it actionable by itself.”
INTERESTING NOTE, which some social media comments could raise was this: When OPP ruled to indict Pam Baricuatro, the governor was Gwen Garcia, Byron’s brother and target of Burden-Baricuatro critical comments.
When DOJ ruled to reverse the local finding and throw out the Byron complaint, the governor was Baricuatro, who was accused of “aligning” or “being friendly” with Malacanang.
When protagonists are politicians, observers do not, cannot ignore the factor of politics. And people, amid the glut of misdirection and false information, inevitably speculate.