JPE and cyber libel

By Rene Saguisag

THe Inquirer asked: “But didn’t he [JPE] himself tell the public on Feb. 22, 1986, as he and . . . Ramos barricaded themselves at Camp Aguinaldo after the discovery of their coup plot. . . , that the ambush was fake? Together with Ramos and [soldiers] that formed the Reform the AFP Movement (RAM), Enrile, speaking on radio, confessed, among other things, that Marcos ordered the staging of the ambush to contrive a final act by his [foes] that forced him to place the country under martial law. The Filipinos forgave him, and trooped to Edsa by the millions to shield him and Ramos and their troops against an assault by Marcos’ military.” PDI, September 30, 2012, A8, col. 1.

If JPE lies, will son Jackie with his Alfie Anido problem? Fruit does not fall far from the tree? The version in the auto-bio that there was no fake ambush seems to be revisionism by one who has done good, validating that all autobiography is vanity (Durants). Falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus?

I borrowed a copy of JPE’s auto-bio last Tuesday, but had time only to skim it, with all else I have to do. Kindly repeatedly invited to the book launch by JPE’s staff and the sponsoring Lopezes, I could not go. I was curious on JPE’s takes on certain items. Like 1) JPE’s supposed 1986 shouting match with PCGG’s Ramon Diaz, presumably over ill-gotten wealth. Gutsy of RD as the rest of us had been tsunamied by the JPE-FVR getaway. No mention. 2) How JPE got word on the need to meet Prez Cory who fired him on Nov. 23, 1986, a Sunday, and whether what happened was what he had expected. Page 665. Cryptic. Elliptical 3) Our early post-Edsa meets on freeing all political detainees, etc. In Club Filipino and Camp Crame meets were difficult and emotional. Uncle Jovy Salonga and I were committed to release all such detainees, a battle cry of years, which unimplemented, would put our credibility on the line right off. FVR was taciturn. JPE was against, as to the extreme left. Page 660. JPE wrote about the Ver-Edna romantic rumors. Page 482. What about his own love life? Page 37. GFs, he said in one memorable interview.

JPE wrote that on the night of Feb. 25, 1986: “I met President Aquino in an open area behind the house of Mrs. Josephine Reyes. With her were Jimmy Ongpin, Nene Pimentel, and [ex-]Justice Cecilia Muñoz Palma, Joker Arroyo, Ramon Mitra, Jojo Binay, Ernie Maceda, Rene Saguisag, and others. . . . President Aquino asked someone to call Ambassador Bosworth and she talked to him. All of a sudden, I heard her exclaim, “No! I do not want him here. I want him out of the country!” I was certain her remarks meant President Marcos.” Page 635. “. [S]hortly after her oath-taking, Cory held court at the head of the huge rectangular table in the cabinet room where Marcos had presided. Doy Laurel as Vice President sat normally to her right and I sat next to Doy as the Defense Secretary. To her left was Joker, her first Executive Secretary, who was pretty much the one steering the meeting. The rest of the cabinet members like Nene P, Neptali G, Rene Saguisag, Bobbit Sanchez, Ernie M, and the others occupied the other seats.” Page 656. To those still doubting I was Present at the Creation, belat kayo lahat. But, As Cory, Jr. I could not move freely as I wished. JPE, I was told, would not touch our food in our Cabinet meets. Poison concern?

The book affirms that he was behind forming ACCRA (Page 350) which he would deny at the time, if my memory is true. Ed Angara asked me at Manila Hotel during a Con-Con lunch break to join it; I declined. I dimly recall JPE suing a mag for mentioning the JPE-ACCRA link in he 80’s. In 1972 an ACCRA partner showed me around the ACCRA office in a Philbanking Bldg. on Ayala and pointed to JPE’s room. Another terminological inexactitude?

Another sizzling topic. Did the cybercrime law (R.A. No. 10175) change the notion of libel?

The penalty therefor was upped by R.A. No. 10175 but the Supreme Court (SC) has been liberal in acquittals and in imposing libel penalties, only a fine in the last decade given more-speech-not-less culture. But, no one should libel whatever the medium; the SC is there to temper. Trial courts may reflect the local power situation. A severe penalty can be nullified as impermissible under the substantive due process and equal protection clauses in a case filed by an actually prejudiced person in a real, not hypothetical, case; particularly so where the media is concerned. The SC strokes and massages the press.

Can Sen. TG Guingona, crying Uncle! make sumbong to the SC after he failed to convince his colleagues? I question too whether a Senator can violate the Consti by being a party. Lawyers-lawmakers are not supposed to appear in courts. What about non-lawyers? May both be circumventive? I prefer the prudential approach of Sen. Chiz Escudero, Sen. Allan Cayetano and Rep. Sonny Angara. They will work to amend and not have the SC do the dirty job. What TG is doing it to show up the executive and legislative branches as constitutional innocents. Given the trio’s initiative the SC should show judicial restraint: give Congress time to “correct” its work. I admire the courage of any Senator going to the SC asserting that close to 300 lawmakers abetted by PNoy’s legal team—do not know the Consti. Is TG the proper party, a lawmaker who lost in the Senate voting? And there is no actual case or controversy involving anyone personally on which he seeks an SC veto via an advisory opinion. Solons may differ but the Cabinet must speak with a single voice.

The Revised Penal Code penalizes libel by six months and one day to four years and two months and a fine ranging from P200 to P6,000, or both, in addition to the victim’s civil suit for damages. Courts may impose a fine, or imprisonment, or both, and award crippling damages.

We redeem valuable human material and prevent unnecessary deprivation of personal liberty and economic usefulness with due regard to the the social order. Buatis v. People, 485 SCRA 275, 291 (2006)(libel). In Sazon v. CA, 255 SCRA 692, 703 (1996) (libel) the SC ruled that “ the decision of the Court of Appeals is hereby AFFIRMED with the modification that, in lieu of imprisonment and fine, the penalty . . . shall be a fine of [3,000].” Better than having the SC shame the other branches, and immunize those saying what they think of Justices and their ancestors. To doubt is to sustain – Malcolm. The elected can cure the defects. Anyone calling a Justice a rapist online will be out of line and cannot be insulated from suit. But, the Right thing must be done by the Right party at the Right Time in the Right Way and for the Right reason. My Five R’s.

resetting the record straight #EDSA

i’m wrapping up a final book on EDSA UNO so i flinched only a little before paying php 1,650 for JUAN PONCE ENRILE: A Memoir (2012) the very day after it was launched.  i went straight for chapter 13, “The Four Days of EDSA,” and found myself sighing through it, resigning myself to another last-na-talaga tweak of my manuscript to take into the text and endnotes the stuff he confirms, and qualifies, and glosses over.  happily, consuelo de bobo, none of it changes my reading that it was people power that freaked marcos out of the palace.

at the end of  the chapter, i turned the page idly to see what next, and was blown away by chapter 14, “Setting The Record Straight,” where i found myself in hallowed company.

fr. reuter and the cardinal

in the first 9 pages, enrile disputes two items in Fr. Reuter’s People Power–The Philippine Revolution of 1986: one, cardinal’s sin’s account that that enrile phoned him on saturday afternoon 22 feb “almost crying” and afraid to die — pure fabrication, cardinal sin lied; two, fr. reuter’s account of a “crame war room” scene on tuesday 25 feb afternoon — fiction, fr. reuter lied.  i leave it to editor monina allarey-mercado to defend fr. reuter and the cardinal.

me and my chronology

in the next page and a half enrile takes me to task, and so harshly, it felt like a fist to my solar plexus.

Another Fiction

Another book was written with the title “1986–Chronology of a Revolution.” The author was Angela Stuart-Santiago, and the editor was Lorna Kalaw-Tirol.’

On page 180 of that book, these paragraphs appeared:

“The First Family made their getaway from the Reception Hall where all of them gathered during those final hours, down a flight of stairs to Heroes Hall, boarding the presidential barge to cross the Pasig River till they reached the lawn of Malacanang Park where the two helicopters awaited them.

“Enrile was waiting (for Marcos) in the shadows, covered by his own RAM guard. The two men had worked together closely for nearly thirty years, enriching each other beyond most men’s fantasies. They knew things about each other that nobody else knew. According to witnesses, the meeting ended with words of conciliation and a long embrace between the two men.”

The second paragraph was complete false. It was not only an unpardonable falsehood, it was also meant intentionally and maliciously to tarnish my name and my role in the 1986 Edsa Revolution. It intended to portray me to the people as a disreputable, despicable, and a (sic) double-crosser.

How in heaven’s name could I have possibly been “waiting…in the shadows” for President Marcos in Malacanang at that moment. I was then in Wack-Wack with President Aquino. When I left her, I went straight to my office in Camp Aguinaldo. I waited there for Ted Koppel who interviewed me that evening. Whoever concocted that false story was lying through her or his teeth to the people.

The inventor of that falsehood also said in the same paragraph that President Marcos and I “had worked together closely for nearly thirty years.”

The writer of the book was truly uninformed about me. President Marcos was a total stranger to me until I met him in mid-1964. I began to work for Presdient Marcos only in January 1966. He asked me to join his administration after he won the presidency in the national election in 1965. It was not true as the writer wrote that I worked closely with him for “nearly thirty years.”

The writer of the book also said that President Marcos and I enriched “each other beyond most men’s fantasies.” Modesty aside, I was engaged in active and lucrative law practice before I joined the Marcos regime. I had as my client many of the biggest corporations of the country at that time.

According to that second paragraph, President Marcos and I “knew things about each other that nobody else knew.”

All my dealings, actions, decisions, and transactions throughout my twenty years with the Marcos regime involving the government and persons here and abroad were done openly and publicly. I had no secrets of any kind.

If President Marcos knew any misconduct that I had committed, he would certainly have exposed it to the public during those four days of the 1986 Edsa Revolution. The fact was that he made no such expose’ (sic) against me because he had nothing to expose about me. [pp. 649-650]

i didn’t write that paragraph, sterling seagrave did; it’s on page 419 of his book The Marcos Dynasty (Harper and Row, New York, 1988).  my chronology was purely a timeline, every source, whether a publication or personal interview, a primary source, clearly indicated at every point.  i hardly wrote any of it, except for the introduction.

i would ask of enrile’s editor nelson navarro and publisher abs-cbn publishing, inc. the same question enrile asks of monina allarey-mercado re cardinal sin’s alleged lies:

I … do not why know why the editor … did not bother to check from Cristina and from me whether the alleged words and emotional behaviors ascribed to us reflected the truth. [643]

i do not know why, i cannot believe that, editor nelson navarro did not bother to check my chronology and see that the offending paragraph was clearly ascribed to seagrave.  or maybe he did, but maybe it didn’t matter, the object was to vilify me, maybe render my edsa works questionable?  i don’t know.

chronology came out in 1996.  enrile could have immediately notified me, or my editor, or my publisher and contested seagrave’s account; then it would not be part, too, of Himagsikan sa EDSA–Walang Himala (2000), or i would at least have qualified the item with an endnote.

or what if, instead, enrile had  come out earlier with the info that at the time marcos was flying off, he was meeting with cory in wack wack?  then most likely i would have given him the benefit of the doubt and cited seagrave only in the endnotes, if at all.

eggie apostol

the final four pages of chapter 14 are devoted to eggie, mother of the post-ninoy mosquito press, whose Foundation for Worldwide People Power published both my EDSA books, Chronology (1996) and Himagsikan (2000).  i gather that enrile is referring to these books when he says:

In the aftermath of the Edsa Revolution, many more such attempts like those I narrated above have succeeded in conditioning the minds of many Filipinos to believe their lies against me; to portray me as a person who wanted power for himself, whose attempt was discovered by Marcos, and who used the military and the Filipino to save his own skin. [653-654]

the way i read it (correct me if i’m wrong), enrile is unhappy with EDSA accounts that state the historical facts: there was a reformist coup plot that sought to install him in marcos’s place.  the coup plot was discovered and he was told that there were warrants out for his and the reformists’ arrests.  he chose to take a stand in camp aguinaldo and appealed to the people for support.  the people came in great numbers, stopped tanks, and indeed saved their skins.  nothing he says in the memoir gives the lie to any of that.  unless he means to say that they could have lived through an assault by marcos forces even without the people’s support, which would be debatable.

There have also been many attempts by some people who wanted to “enlarge”, “enhance” or even “invent” their participation and role, if any, in the Edsa Revolution. [654]

i suppose “some people” refers principally to cory, who, enrile once said, was not even in EDSA, or something like that.  in fact, cory visited EDSA the afternoon of feb 24 monday, but even if she had not, cory was there in spirit — the massive crowds were wearing her colors and chanting her name all through the four days.

Because I was imvolved in politics, the systematic vilification against me was easy to understand and to even forgive. But the disservice done to me was nothing compared to the equally systemic attempt to minimize, if not totally eradicate from the annals of history, the role of the courageous and patriotic soldiers of the land who dared and who were willing and ready to sacrifice their families, their blood and their lives to free the people from a regime that had long lost its moral right to govern. It is something unpardonable and something that I have detested all these years. It showed me the callousness, perfidy and ingratitude of those who benefitted most from the 1986 Edsa Revolution. [654]

here, enrile could be referring to other EDSA accounts.  but if he’s still referring to mine that eggie published, i don’t see how it can be said that i attempted to “minimize, if not totally eradicate from the annals of history” the role of the rebel military.  i tell it as it happened, based on published and first-person reports.  the reformists broke away and the people marched to EDSA to shield them from the dictator.

what i do say is that if enrile and ramos had not defected, people power would have happened anyway.  feb 22 was the 7th day of the crony boycott, the economy was reeling, the people were in the throes of nonviolent revolution, marcos’s inauguration would have brought them to the streets anyway, straight to mendiola, most likely, there to face tanks and marines just as bravely and stunningly.  but as it happened, the military reformists did defect, good for them, and we continue to celebrate that day as the beginning of the four days of EDSA.

the final sentence, i don’t get.  who is enrile accusing of “callousness, perfidy and ingratitude”?  eggie pa rin?  for publishing Chronology and Himagsikan?  it needs saying that eggie didn’t commission me to write either one, and did not in any way attempt to influence or edit my reading of, and writing on, the four days’ events.  Himagsikan had already won an honorable mention in the 1998 philippine centennial literary contest when eggie published it.

it bears pointing out, too, that from the first, my work on EDSA was offered as a tentative framework, its format styled for easy editing and/or re-arranging in case of credible challenge.

Enrile’s memoir, and defamation

by radikalchick

on pages 648 to 650 of Juan Ponce Enrile, A Memoir (2012) Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile (and his editor Nelson Navarro and publisher ABS-CBN Publishing) falsely accuse my mother Angela Stuart-Santiago of writing “unpardonable falsehood” that was “meant intentionally and maliciously to tarnish <Enrile’s> name and <his> role in the 1986 EDSA Revolution. <Stuart-Santiago’s book> intended to portray me as a disresputable, despicable and a double-crosser.” <bad english not mine> (page 649).

does this count as defamation and libel?

read on…

 

cyberlibel law will “level the playing field” ?!?

before anything else, kudos cheers mabuhays to SENATOR TG GUINGONA for voting NO to the cybercrime act, the only one who dared, cared, on grounds that the libel clause is a prior restraint on freedom of expression, a constitutionally guaranteed right.

so who voted yes to the cybercrime act despite the libel clause?

LOREN LEGARDA
FRANCIS ESCUDERO 
GREGORIO HONASAN II
AQUILINO “KOKO” PIMENTEL 
PIA CAYETANO
RAMON “BONG” REVILLA JR.
JINGGOY EJERCITO-ESTRADA
PANFILO LACSON
MANUEL “LITO” LAPID
FERDINAND “BONGBONG” MARCOS
RALPH RECTO
VICENTE SOTTO III
MANNY VILLAR

so the following abstained, it would seem:

JUAN PONCE ENRILE
JOKER ARROYO
ALAN PETER CAYETANO
EDGARDO ANGARA 
FRANKLIN DRILON
MIRIAM DEFENSOR SANTIAGO
SERGIO OSMENA III 
FRANCIS “KIKO” PANGILINAN
ANTONIO “SONNY” TRILLANES

makes you wonder about these senators.

my first thought was, the ones who said yes must be anti-RH, like sotto.  but wait, where’s enrile?  and what’s RH sponsor pia doing in that list?  ah, so, maybe these are senators who have been criticized, berated, attacked online a la sotto, they know what it’s like, or maybe they haven’t and they don’t want to be and they don’t want to know what it’s like, ever, so yes, regulate blogs, facebook, twitter, news websites.

as for those who abstained, since they didn’t have it in them to say yes, good for them, then why did they not go the whole hog and vote no a la guingona?  pogi points sana.  talo rin lang kasi, wiser to stay on sotto’s good side, the old-boys-club mentality kicking in, kapit-bisig kumbaga, circle the wagons, there’s more at stake than one senator’s reputation?  there’s more at stake than one senate bill?

say ni pia cayetano sa twitter:

My review of the cybercrime bill was focused on child pornography, which falls within my area of responsibility.

a follower asked:

@piacayetano so if you say your review is only on child pornography, then all the other areas of the law you don’t bother to check? 

no response so far.  what kind of senators are these.

and no word from the palace, no explanations.  only this announcement on the president’s website, that the doj, the dilg, and the dost are working on the implementing rules and regulations of the cybercrime act.

Punishable acts under the new law include offenses against the confidentiality, integrity and availability of computer data system, illegal access, illegal interception, data interference, system interference, and misuse of devices. Also included are computer-related offenses such as forgery, fraud, and identity theft that are rampant in the Internet.

Also punishable under the new law are content-related offenses like cybersex, and child pornography.

The law also punishes unsolicited commercial communications or cyber squatting, the acquisition of a person’s domain name for profit or destroy reputations.

ang lupit, di ba?  no time-frame, manginig tayo.  at ang weird, ni hindi nakalista ang libel.  which means what?  did they even read it?  did they even know that it contained a libel clause?

and take note, the prez and the senators are leaving it to sotto iii to defend the libel clause.  every one else is silent on the matter, esp the palace communications peeps, two of whom used to be “noted” bloggers, one of whom tweeted non-stop in memory of the declaration of martial law.

rubbing salt into the wound, sotto iii has the temerity to ask : why, what’s wrong with a libel law in cyber space? 

“I can’t see the logic,” said Senate Majority Leader Vicente Sotto III when asked to react to media protests regarding the dangers and possible unconstitutionality of extending libel laws to new social media in the new Cybercrime Prevention Act.

“If mainstream media are prevented by law from cursing and engaging in character assassination, why should those in the social media and in the Internet be exempted from such accountability,” said Sotto, who had proposed the extension of the Act’s coverage to include libel.

“What’s so special about (mainstream journalists) that they have those prohibitions, and that they (social media bloggers) don’t?” Sotto had insisted in a recent interview.

—

The libel clause in the recently passed anti-cybercrime law is meant to “level the playing field” between the mainstream media and the social media, Sen. Vicente Sotto III said. 

he can’t see the logic in the cybercommunity’s protests.  he’s saying that he only seeks to level the playing field between social media and mainstream media, both should be covered by the same libel law, never mind that honasan had filed a bill to decriminalize libel, i guess because honasan must have changed his mind, as he voted for the cybercrime-with-libel law.

but but but it is not the playing field between mainstream and social media that’s the problem – we are co-existing, mainstream media is not complaining that social media is more free; social media, indie political bloggers in particular, are not complaining that mainstream media is profit-oriented, a capitalist enterprise.  it is what it is.  instead, mainstream and social media are feeding off each other, and that is good, for the information of the nation.

in truth, the playing field that needs to be levelled is the one between government officials and the citizens and communities whom they are pledged to serve.  lamang na lamang, llamadong llamado ang ruling class, from one admin to the next, life does not get better, only worse, for the larger population, status quo.

for our part, all that we political bloggers and commenters and tweeters and facebookers have is the internet where, as ordinary citizens mostly, we have the freedom to speak out, share our points of view, take a stand, esp on political developments that impact negatively on nation (and there are many, it doesn’t stop…), if only for the record.

indeed, it is not a level playing field, and an anti-libel law that infringes on the freedom of speech of the cyber community makes the rules even more  favorable for the already powerful ones who have sat on the RH and FOI bills, and who knows what else, divorce? for more than a decade now, manigas tayo.

on facebook there are some who say that we who are so upset by the cybercrime act should have spoken up before the bill became law, that we should have monitored closely the legislative process. ang say ko naman, but, really, there were some who spoke up, and even if more had spoken up earlier, would the senate have listened to us?  the senate has not been listening to 7 out of 10 filipinos who want the RH bill, why would they listen to the cybercommunity, na 3 out of 10 filipinos lang daw (and of that three, i bet only one is interested in politics).

ang problema sa ating elected government officials ay, they believe their own propaganda that they are god’s gift to filipinos, they know better than we do about what’s good for the nation, so na-o-offend sila na bonggang bongga when they’re called out, criticized, cyberstoned for something we think they did wrong or didn’t do right.

what if, sumagot sila nang maayos?  umamin, kapag nagkamali.  magpaliwanag, kung may malabo.  engage with the citizenry in constructive discourse.  but no.  instead of getting their acts together, instead of behaving like honorable statesmen who deserve to be in public office, instead of giving us no cause to criticize and deplore, instead of being men and facing up to public opinion for the good of nation, they slap us with an anti-cyber-libel law.

and this, from sotto pa rin, part of his justification for the libel rider, based on the senate journal of january 24, 2012.

…there are numerous abuses in technology, particularly the video and photo uploading and unnecessary write-ups and comments in social networking systems. 

unnecessary in what sense?  who is to decide about necessity?  what might seem unnecessary to sotto would not necessarily be unnecessary in the filipino’s long-term struggle for a true, informed, and working democracy.  everything being done and being said in the freewheeling ether of cyberspace today, day after day, from the inane to the cruel, from the gross to the sublime, and everything that government does and does not do, documented for cyber-eternity, has historical value and significance for the future.

i’m a writer of history, and this is an indie non-profit blog where i share historical and political notes, and call a spade a spade, in aid of nation-building, if not for my children’s generation, then for their my grandchildren’s, and yours.  don’t tell me i have to mince my words now and live in fear of sotto and his ilk.

AMEND THE ANTI-CBYERCRIME ACT!
DECRIMINALIZE LIBEL!