Human rights alliance Karapatan assailed the conviction of Baguio-based Rappler correspondent Frank Cimatu for cyberlibel.
Cimatu’s cyberlibel case which was filed by former Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel Piñol stemmed from a 2017 Facebook post where Cimatu wrote “Agri sec got rich by P21-M in 6 months. Bird flu pa more.” Cimatu’s post was based on a previous report from the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism showing that Piñol’s net worth rose by a “fantastic P21,956,632.23,” from P3,643,000 in 2009 to P25,599,632.23 in December 2016 based on his Statement of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth.
Human rights alliance Karapatan assailed the conviction of Baguio-based Rappler correspondent Frank Cimatu for cyberlibel.
Cimatu’s cyberlibel case which was filed by former Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel Piñol stemmed from a 2017 Facebook post where Cimatu wrote “Agri sec got rich by P21-M in 6 months. Bird flu pa more.” Cimatu’s post was based on a previous report from the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism showing that Piñol’s net worth rose by a “fantastic P21,956,632.23,” from P3,643,000 in 2009 to P25,599,632.23 in December 2016 based on his Statement of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth.
Cimatu, who also chairs the Baguio chapter of the National Union of Journalists in the Philippines (NUJP), was sentenced by the Quezon City Regional Trial Court Branch 93 to a minimum of six months and one day to a maximum of five years, five months and eleven days imprisonment and to pay P300,000 as moral damages.
Karapatan Secretary General Cristina Palabay said, “The fact that Frank Cimatu was convicted for cyberlibel merely for expressing his opinion shows how the country’s cyberlibel laws can be dangerously used as a weapon for media repression.”
Many journalists have likewise been charged with cyberlibel, with the most notorious case so far involving Quezon-based broadcast journalists Darcie de Galicia and Noel Alamar of ABS-CBN Teleradyo who are facing up to 941 counts of cyberlibel filed by Quezon Gov. Helen Tan and her husband, DPWH Region IV-A director Ronel Tan over an interview the journalists made during their online broadcast.
Palabay, who criticized the country’s laws on libel and cyberlibel as antiquated and inconsistent with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights to which the Philippine government is a signatory, joined longstanding calls from the NUJP and other media organizations for the decriminalization of libel. #