Journalists to Mike Arroyo: No, thank you

Journalists to Mike Arroyo: No, thank you
The fight continues
By Jose Bimbo F. Santos

TIRED. PALLID. Worn out.
The Jose Miguel Arroyo that emerged from St. Luke’s Medical Center after heart surgery seemed worlds apart from the one who, last February, had a shouting match with another lawyer and challenged him to just “settle this outside.”
After Arroyo’s brush with mortality came an apparent change of heart. An “offer of a handshake” now awaits the journalists, whom he once wished to be thrown in jail for, among other reasons, causing him “serious emotional trauma, mental anguish, serious anxiety, (and) public embarrassment.”
But while some journalists were relieved over Press Secretary Ignacio Bunye’s announcement of Arroyo’s intention to withdraw his libel suits, not one felt the need to reciprocate the gesture by withdrawing their class suit. The journalists preferred to see the cases through so that the legal margins for the definition of libel could be clearly drawn.
In the 2004 publication of the Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility (CMFR Press Freedom in the Philippines: A study in contradictions, CMFR executive director Melinda de Jesus wrote that “(t)here have been few cases raised in Philippine courts to resolve questions of competing rights or to probe legitimate challenges to the limits of press freedom.”
De Jesus explained that “(p)ress freedom issues in court involve mostly libel, or the grievance suffered by (an) individual; but these do not probe (into) the impact of press freedom abuse on the quality of politics and other aspects of life.”

Humanitarian challenge
Pursuing the case was a popular decision among the plaintiffs, but it was not so with the public. There arose a question of “goodwill,” as Arroyo, who had just had a life-threatening operation, himself offered a gesture of peace.
“Commentators have questioned the sued journalists’ intransigence, implying that they were ungrateful and callous for rejecting the ‘handshake’ offered by Arroyo and refusing to let bygones be bygones,” Rina Jimenez David wrote in her May 23 column in the Philippine Daily Inquirer.
Newsbreak editor-in-chief Maritess Vitug, who was among those that Arroyo sued, was asked by a reporter if pursuing the case against the President’s husband did not constitute harassment.
“A reporter said that I may be seen as harassing a sick person by choosing to pursue the cases. It struck me that standing one’s ground and seeking justice can be seen in such personal terms,” Vitug wrote in Newsbreak online.
She added, “He also pointedly asked me if I wasn’t being hypocritical. ‘Why did we strongly protest Mr. Arroyo’s filing of the libel cases and now that he is withdrawing them, we’re being belligerent?’  Why, he argued, did we strongly protest Mr. Arroyo’s filing of the libel cases and now that he is withdrawing them, we’re being belligerent.”
The plaintiffs, however, were not moved.
Meeting after Bunye’s announcement of Arroyo’s intended withdrawal of his charges, the plaintiffs said they were aware that they were perceived by some people to be heartless for pursuing the class suit. Unanimously, however, they decided to pursue the case against Arroyo.
In a statement released on May 23, the plaintiffs affirmed their position: “As it happens, this is not a case of such humanitarian challenge as the question seems to suggest. Mr. Arroyo, no doubt, deserves every sympathy after his heart surgery but, however serious his condition may be, it does not excuse him from misrepresenting his place in the way he has done: his is not to dispense generosity (his own word) to the journalists, but to ask them for it.”

Docket fee
On the May 23 hearing at the Makati Regional Trial Court Branch 143, the plaintiffs’ lawyer Roger Rayel declared that the journalists were still pursuing the class action suit. Arroyo’s lawyer Arnel Valenia meanwhile asked for a deferment of the proceedings because of their petition for certiorari filed before the Court of Appeals (CA) and Arroyo’s delicate health condition.
Judge Zenaida Laguilles granted Valenia’s request and set the next hearing on June 22. She however warned him that his client would be considered to have waived his right to present evidence if he does not do so in the next hearing.
“Please take note that you have been repeatedly deferring this case,” she said, adding that while the court does not want to be accused of being inconsiderate, it also has a duty to perform. The judge admitted that, “This court has been too lenient to the defendant.”
Earlier, Arroyo’s camp filed a petition for certiorari arguing that Laguilles had no jurisdiction over the case and that the docket fee paid by the plaintiffs was insufficient. In the original complaint filed by the journalists, the word “each” was written in the section asking for damages. It meant that every petitioner in the suit wanted to be paid P12.5 million in damages. Arroyo’s lawyer argued that the docket fee paid by the plaintiffs—a total of P125,000—was insufficient since they are asking for much higher damages. Arroyo’s camp also immediately dismissed the possibility that the inclusion of the word “each” was a typographical error.
“It is also difficult to believe that plaintiffs, all seasoned journalists who claimed they read the complaint before verifying it, would also miss that supposed ‘typo’ (error). On the contrary, it is easier to believe that ‘each’ plaintiff wants to recover (damages). There would have been no reason for many of them to join as plaintiffs otherwise,” Arroyo’s lawyer said.
Arroyo’s camp further argued that those journalists who have not been charged by Arroyo have no right to sue him “precisely because they have not been sued.”
“Courts do not litigate imagined and speculative claims,” it said.
Rejecting the plaintiff’s claim that the class suit was filed “to keep defendant from abusing his right to litigate,” Arroyo said in his reply that “(the) semantic hair-splitting is not only absurd; it is downright laughable.”

Not the end
The plaintiffs had said that the class suit was not filed to restrain Arroyo from exercising his right but rather from “abusing his right to litigate.” Cited in their motion was the decision in Supreme Court v. Civil Service Com-mission (276 SCRA 610), where it was stated that “litigation should, as much as possible, be decided on the merits and not on technicality.”
In their amendment, plaintiffs moved to omit the word “each,” so as to dispel the issue of the insufficient docket fee and the impression that each plaintiff was seeking P12.5 million in damages.
In Laguilles’s order dated March 16, she approved the motion of the plaintiffs to amend the complaint and said that there is “liberality in allowing amend-ments in the early stages of a lawsuit.” She added that the issue of insufficient docket fee will be addressed in the preliminary hearing. If the plaintiffs paid an insufficient fee, Laguilles said the court “can subsequently direct the payment of the correct docket fee within a reasonable period, thus abandoning the… view that failure to pay the correct docket fee ousts a court of its jurisdiction.”
Rather than end a contentious issue, Mike Arroyo’s offer of a “handshake” led to nothing more than a very brief pause in a long journey.

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