LUCAS VS. EVANGELISTA, ET AL.

CRIM. CASE. NO. III-01-INV-20B-00197-00208

CYBER LIBEL under Section 4(c) (4), R.A. 10175
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

I. LIBEL

Manila Bulletin Publishing Corporation and Ruther Batuigas vs.

Victor A. Domingo and the People of the Philippines (July 5, 2017,
G.R. No. 170341)

Under our law, criminal libel is defined as a public and malicious

imputation of a crime or of a vice or defect, real or imaginary, or any
act, omission, condition, status, or circumstance tending to cause the
dishonor, discredit, or contempt of a natural or juridical person, or to
blacken the memory of one who is dead. For an imputation to be
libelous under Art. 353 of the Revised Penal Code (RPC), the
following requisites must be present: (a) it must be defamatory; (b) it
must be malicious; (c) it must be given publicity; and (d) the victim
must be identifiable.

An allegation is considered defamatory if it ascribes to a person the

commission of a crime, the possession of a vice or defect, real or
imaginary, or any act, omission, condition, status or circumstance
which tends to dishonor or discredit or put him in contempt, or
which tends to blacken the memory of one who is dead. In
determining whether a statement is defamatory, the words used are
to be construed in their entirety and should be taken in their plain,
natural, and ordinary meaning as they would naturally be
understood by persons reading them, unless it appears that they
were used and understood in another sense. Moreover, a charge is
sufficient if the words are calculated to induce the hearers to suppose
and understand that the person or persons against whom they were
uttered were guilty of certain offenses or are sufficient to impeach the
honesty, virtue or reputation or to hold the person or persons up to
public ridicule.
Malice connotes ill will or spite and speaks not in response to duty
but merely to injure the reputation of the person defamed, and
implies an intention to do ulterior and unjustifiable harm. Malice is
bad faith or bad motive. It is the essence of the crime of libel.

There is publication if the material is communicated to a third

person. It is not required that the person defamed has read or heard
about the libelous remark. What is material is that a third person has
read or heard the libelous statement, for "a man's reputation is the
estimate in which others hold him, not the good opinion which he
has of himself." Simply put, in libel, publication means making the
defamatory matter, after it is written, known to someone other than
the person against whom it has been written. "The reason for this is
that [a] communication of the defamatory matter to the person
defamed cannot injure his reputation though it may wound his self-
esteem. A man's reputation is not the good opinion he has of himself,
but the estimation in which others hold him."

On the other hand, to satisfy the element of identifiability, it must be

shown that at least a third person or a stranger was able to identify
him as the object of the defamatory statement. It is enough if by
intrinsic reference the allusion is apparent or if the publication
contains matters of description or reference to facts and
circumstances from which others reading the article may know the
person alluded to; or if the latter is pointed out by extraneous
circumstances so that those knowing such person could and did
understand that he was the person referred to.

U.S. v. Cañete, 38 Phil. 253, 264 (1918); Suarez v. CA, 186 SCRA 339
(1990)

Malice indicates the presence of personal ill will or spite, or the

intention to injure the reputation of the person defamed.

Malice involves an evil intent or motive arising from spite or ill will;
personal hatred or ill will; or culpable recklessness or a willful and
wanton disregard of the rights and interests of the person defamed.
In a libel case it consists in intentionally publishing, without
justifiable cause, any written or printed matter which is injurious to
the character of another. Malice may be defined, insofar as
defamation is concerned, as acting in bad faith and with knowledge
of falsity of statements.1
The existence of malice is implied or presumed by law from the fact
of a defamatory publication (malice in law). The particular intent of
the offender to cast dishonor, discredit or contempt on the person
libeled is termed actual malice, or express malice, or malice in fact.2

Art. 354. Requirement for publicity. — Every defamatory

imputation is presumed to be malicious, even if it be true, if no good
intention and justifiable motive for making it is shown, except in the
following cases:
1
Black’s Law Dictionary, 6th Ed., 957. “Malice connotes ill will or spite and speaks not in response to duty
but merely to injure the reputation of the person defamed, and implies an intention to do ulterior and
unjustifiable harm. Malice is bad faith or bad motive. It is the essence of the crime of libel.” Borjal v. CA,
301 SCRA 1, 28 (1999).
2
Moreno, Philippine Law Dictionary, 3rd Ed., 571, citing People v. Peregrino, 65 OG 4834.

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 1. A private communication made by any person to another in
the performance of any legal, moral or social duty; and

2. A fair and true report, made in good faith, without any

comments or remarks, of any judicial, legislative or other official
proceedings which are not of confidential nature, or of any statement,
report or speech delivered in said proceedings, or of any other act
performed by public officers in the exercise of their functions.

Art. 354 of the Revised Penal Code (RPC) provides that good
intention and justifiable motives are defenses for a defamatory
imputation even if it be true.

Jurisprudence supplements the enumeration in Article 354 of the

RPC.
In Borjal vs. CA (361 Phil. 1, January 14, 1999), it was held that the
enumeration in Article 354 is not an exclusive list of qualifiedly
privileged communications because “fair comments on matters of
public interest are privileged and constitute a valid defense in an
action for libel or slander”

Fair commentaries on matters of public interest are privileged and

constitute a valid defense in an action for libel or slander. The
doctrine of fair comment means that while in general every
discreditable imputation publicly made is deemed false, because
every man is presumed innocent until his guilt is judicially proved,
and every false imputation is deemed malicious, nevertheless, when
the discreditable imputation is directed against a public person in his
public capacity, it is not necessarily actionable. In order that such
discreditable imputation to a public official may be actionable, it
must either be a false allegation of fact or a comment based on a false
supposition. If the comment is an expression of opinion, based on
established facts, then it is immaterial that the opinion happens to be
mistaken, as long as it might reasonably be inferred from the facts.

Sison vs. David (G.R. No. L-11268, January 28, 1961)

Qualified privilege exists in a larger number of cases than does

absolute privilege. It relates more particularly to private interests,
and comprehends communications made in good faith, without
actual malice, with reasonable or probable grounds for believing
them to be true, on a subject matter in which the author of the
communication has an interest, or in respect to which he has a duty,
public, personal, or private, either legal, judicial, political, moral, or
social, made to a person having a corresponding interest or duty.
Briefly stated, a qualifiedly privileged communication is a
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defamatory communication made on what is called an occasion of
privilege without actual malice, and as to such communications there
is no civil liability, regardless of whether or not the communication is
libelous per se or libelous per quod. (53 C.J.S., pp. 143-144.)

In the case of communications qualifiedly privileged, there must be

both an occasion of privilege and the use of that occasion in good
faith. (53 C.J.S., p. 145.)

A publication is conditionally or qualifiedly privileged where

circumstances exist, or are 'reasonably believed by the defendant to
exist, which cast on him the duty of making a communication to a
certain other person to whom he makes such communication in the
performance of such duty, or where the person is so situated that it
becomes right in the interests the person of society that he should tell
third persons certain facts, which he in good faith proceeds to do.
This general idea has been otherwise expressed as follows: A
communication made in good faith on any subject matter in which
the person communicating has an interest, or in reference to which
he has a duty, is privileged if made to a person having a
corresponding interest or duty, even though it contains matter
which, without this privilege, would be actionable, and although
the duty is not a legal one, but only a moral or social duty of
imperfect obligation. The essential elements of conditionally
privileged communication may accordingly be enumerated as a
good faith, an interest to be upheld, a statement limited in its scope
to this purpose, a proper occasion, and publication in a proper
manner and to proper parties only. (33 Am. Jur., pp. 124-125.)

People v. Velasco, CA 40 O.G. 3694; Aquino, Revised Penal Code,

Vol. III, 1988 Ed., 559-560

It is a defense to an action for libel that the words complained of are a

fair comment on a matter of public interest. The reason for this is that
freedom of speech is not only one of the constitutional rights of a
person but it is also absolutely essential to the democratic rules under
the aegis of which our libel law was evolved and wherein the people
are supposed to sit in judgment upon all public affairs. Hence, the
jealous vigilance with which the free play of open criticism upon all
matters of public interest is safeguarded. The doctrine of fair
comment simply means that while, generally speaking, every
discreditable imputation publicly made is deemed false, because
every man is presumed innocent until judicially proven, and every
false imputation is presumed malicious, nevertheless when the
discreditable imputation is directed against an officer in his official
capacity, it is not necessarily actionable. In order to be actionable, the
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imputation must either be a false allegation of fact or a comment
based on a false supposition. If the comment is an expression of an
opinion, based upon proven facts, then it is immaterial that the
opinion happens to be erroneous, so long as it might be reasonably
inferred from the facts. Comments may be fair, although wrong.

The fair-comment privilege was established primarily to protect

public debate by sheltering communications about matters of public
concern.3 Other threads of rationale underlying the protection are: (a)
that comment cannot be “false” and therefore cannot be actionable;
(b) that comment will be understood to be merely an individual
viewpoint and will therefore tend not to injure reputation; and (c)
that, as long as the factual basis for commentary is set forth or readily
available, as the common law privilege requires, readers may judge
for themselves the validity of the opinion expressed.4

“The plainest principles of natural right and sound public policy

require that the utmost freedom should be accorded every citizen to
complain to the supervising, removing and appointing authorities of
the misconduct of the public officials with whom he comes into
contact.”5 The Supreme Court in Vasquez v. Court of Appeals (314
SCRA 460, 477 [1999]) quoted Justice Brandeis who wrote in Whitney
v. California (247 U.S. 357 [1927]) that “public discussion is a political
duty” and the “greatest menace to freedom is an inert people.”
However, the criticism should be directed at the conduct but not at
the person of the public official.

Men have the right to attack, rightly or wrongly, the policy of a

public official with every argument which ability can find or
ingenuity invent. They may show, by argument good or bad, such
policy to be injurious to the individual and to society. They may
demonstrate, by logic true or false, that it is destructive of human
freedom and will result in the overthrow of the nation itself. But the
law does not permit men falsely to impeach the motives, attack the
honesty, blacken the virtue, or injure the reputation of that official.
They may destroy, by fair means or foul, the whole fabric of his
statesmanship, but the law does not permit them to attack the man
himself. They may falsely charge that his policies are bad, but they
may not falsely allege that he is bad. x x x Men may argue, but they
may not traduce. Men may differ, but they may not, for that reason,
falsely charge dishonesty. Men may look at policies from different
points of view and see them in different lights, but they may not, on
that account, falsely charge criminality, immorality, lack of virtue,
3
Restatement of Torts, 606(1) (1938); Milkovich v. Lorain Journal Co., 497 U.S. 1, 13 (1990).
4
Sack and Baron, op cit., 234-5.
5
People v. Cañete, 38 Phil. 251 (1918).

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bad motives, evil intentions, or corrupt heart or mind. Men may
falsely charge that policies are bad, but they cannot falsely charge
that men are bad.6

Guingguing vs. CA (508 Phil. 193 [2005])

The remarks directed against a public figure are likewise privileged.

In order to justify a conviction in libel involving privileged
communication, the prosecution must establish that the libelous
statements were made or published with actual malice or malice in
fact – the knowledge that the statement is false or with reckless
disregard as to whether or not it was true.

Co vs. Munoz, Jr. (G.R. No. 181986, December 4, 2013)

In libel, the existence of malice is essential as it is an element of the

crime.

The law presumes that every imputation is malicious; this is referred

to as malice in law.

The presumption relieves the prosecution of the burden of proving

that the imputations were made with malice. This presumption is
rebutted if the accused proved that the imputation is true and
published with good intention and justifiable motive.
In other words, our rulings in Borjal and Guingguing show that
privileged communication has the effect of destroying the
presumption of malice or malice in law and consequently requiring
the prosecution to prove the existence of malice in fact.

Art. 361. Proof of the truth. — In every criminal prosecution for libel,
the truth may be given in evidence to the court and if it appears that
the matter charged as libelous is true, and, moreover, that it was
published with good motives and for justifiable ends, the defendants
shall be acquitted.

Proof of the truth of an imputation of an act or omission not

constituting a crime shall not be admitted, unless the imputation
shall have been made against Government employees with respect to
facts related to the discharge of their official duties.
In such cases if the defendant proves the truth of the imputation
made by him, he shall be acquitted.

6
People v. Contreras, 23 Phil. 513, 516-8 (1912).

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In libel as a rule, truth of the defamatory statement is not a defense
by itself, as “[e]very defamatory imputation is presumed to be
malicious, even if it be true.”7 Even if the offender is able to prove the
truth of the defamatory statement, he is not relieved from liability. By
way of exceptions, proof of truth will help exonerate the author of the
defamation in the following:

1. In a criminal prosecution for libel, if the accused presents, in

addition to proof of the truth of the matter charged as libelous,
good motives and justifiable ends in publishing the matter, he
shall be acquitted.8

2. When the offended party is a Government employee, if the

defamatory imputation is related to the discharge of his official
duties, even if the imputation does not constitute a crime, proof of
truth is sufficient for acquittal.9 Under this exception, it is not
required for the defendant or accused to prove good motives and
justifiable ends in publishing the defamatory matter.

People vs. Trillanes (C. A.-B. R. No. 8180)

Proof of the truth and justifiable motives was permitted to be

presented because the Court found that the charges complained of
involved the commission of "various public offenses such as grave
threats, abduction, rape, acts of lasciviousness, adultery, etc.”.

The existence of justifiable motive is a question that has to be decided

by taking into consideration not only the intention of the author of
the publication but all the other circumstances of each particular
case.10 Good intentions and justifiable motive constitute a defense
insofar as they negative malice.11

In one case, the defendant newspaper editor published an article in

which it was alleged that the employees of the Bureau of Commerce
and Industry were unjustly exploited, and began with the words:
“governmental corruption becomes more scandalous day by day. The
most shameless embezzlements are being committed, yet the authors
of the crime not only remain unpunished, but they are sheltered
under the aegis of official patronage.” The editor stated in defense
that he published the article in order to ferret out corruption in
governmental administration, to throw upon it the searchlight of
public opinion, to bring to the attention of the proper authorities the
7
Art. 354, RPC.
8
354 and 361, RPC.
9
Art. 361, RPC.
10
U.S. v. Prautch, 10 Phil. 562, 565 (1908), cited in Daez v. CA, supra note 44, at 68.
11
Aquino, op cit., 567.

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unsavory situation of laborers being exploited, and for the press to
defend the rights of weak and ignorant laborers as a matter of civic
duty. He was exonerated.12

II. CONSPIRACY
People vs. Benito Lababo (G.R. No. 234651, June 06, 2018)

Article 8 of the Revised Penal Code provides that conspiracy exists

when two or more persons come to an agreement concerning the
commission of a felony and decide to commit it. To prove conspiracy,
the prosecution must establish the following three requisites: (1) two
or more persons came to an agreement, (2) the agreement concerned
the commission of a crime, and (3) the execution of the felony was
decided upon. Once conspiracy is established, the act of one becomes
the act of all.

In Bahilidad v. People (G.R. No. 185195, March 17, 2010, 615 SCRA
597) the Court summarized the basic principles in determining
whether conspiracy exists or not. Thus:

There is conspiracy when two or more persons come to an agreement

concerning the commission of a felony and decide to commit it.
Conspiracy is not presumed. Like the physical acts constituting the
crime itself, the elements of conspiracy must be proven beyond
reasonable doubt. While conspiracy need not be established by direct
evidence, for it may be inferred from the conduct of the accused
before, during and after the commission of the crime, all taken
together, however, the evidence must be strong enough to show the
community of criminal design. For conspiracy to exist, it is essential
that there must be a conscious design to commit an offense.
Conspiracy is the product of intentionality on the part of the cohorts.

It is necessary that a conspirator should have performed some overt

act as a direct or indirect contribution to the execution of the crime
committed. The overt act may consist of active participation in the
actual commission of the crime itself, or it may consist of moral
assistance to his co-conspirators by being present at the commission
of the crime or by exerting moral ascendancy over the other co-
conspirators. Hence, the mere presence of an accused at the
discussion of a conspiracy, even approval of it, without any active
participation in the same, is not enough for purposes of conviction.

Macapagal-Arroyo vs. People (G.R. No. 220598, July 19, 2016, 797
SCRA 241)
12
U.S. v. Perfecto, 43 Phil. 225 (1922).

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The community of design to commit an offense must be a conscious
one. Conspiracy transcends mere companionship, and mere presence
at the scene of the crime does not in itself amount to conspiracy. Even
knowledge of, or acquiescence in, or agreement to cooperate is not
enough to constitute one a party to a conspiracy, absent any active
participation in the commission of the crime with a view to the
furtherance of the common design and purpose. Hence, conspiracy
must be established, not by conjecture, but by positive and conclusive
evidence.

People vs. Escobal (G.R. No. 206292, October 11, 2017)

To be considered a part of the conspiracy, each of the accused must

be shown to have performed at least an overt act in pursuance or in
furtherance of the conspiracy, for without being shown to do so none
of them will be liable as a co-conspirator, and each may only be held
responsible for the results of his own acts.

People v. Bautista, G .R. No. 188601, June 29, 2010, 622 SCRA 524,
540.

The State must show at the very least that all participants performed
specific acts with such closeness and coordination as to indicate a
common purpose or design to commit the felony.

Ladonga v. People, G.R. No. 141066, February 17, 2005, 451 SCRA
673, 685

To be held guilty as a co-principal by reason of conspiracy, therefore,

the accused must be shown to have performed an overt act in
pursuance or in furtherance of the conspiracy. The overt act or acts of
the accused may consist of active participation in the actual
commission of the crime itself, or of moral assistance to his co-
conspirators by moving them to execute or implement the criminal
plan.