Borjal v. Court of Appeals, G.R. No. 126466, January 14, 1999

Ponente: BELLOSILLO J.

Petition for review on certiorari of a decision of the CA

Facts:

In Sept 1988, congressional hearings on the transport crisis lead to the organization of the First National Conference on Land Transportation (FNCLT). The conference was to be participated in by the private sector in the transport industry and government agencies concerned.

Its objectives:

•  to find ways and means to solve the transportation crisis

•  to draft an omnibus bill that would embody a long-term land transportation policy for presentation to Congress

28 Feb 1989: Francisco Wenceslao was elected Executive Director of FNCLT. As such, he wrote numerous solicitation letters to the business community for the support of the conference.

Between May and July 1989 a series of articles written by Arturo Borjal was published in his column Jaywalker in The Philippine Star. The articles dealt with the alleged anomalous activities of an "organizer of a conference". It did not name Wenceslao nor refer to the FNCLT.

Convinced that he was the one being alluded to in the articles, Wenceslao  filed a criminal case for libel against Petitioners, among others. However, the Assistant Prosecutor dismissed the complaint for insufficiency of evidence. The dismissal was sustained by the DOJ and later by the Office of the President.

As such on 31 Oct 1990,  Wenceslao filed against Petitioners a civil action for damages for libel.

RTC QC decided in favor of Wenceslao and ordered Petitioners to indemnify Wenceslao P1M for actual and compensatory damages; P200k for md; P100k for exemplary damages, P200k for atty's fees, and costs of suit.

CA affirmed the decision but reduced the amount of the monetary award. 

•     that Wenceslao was sufficiently identifiable

•    that Wenceslao was in fact defamed by Borjal by describing him variously as a "self-proclaimed hero," "a conference organizer associated with shady deals who has a lot of trash tucked inside his closet," "thick face," and "a person with dubious ways;"

•    that Peitioners claim of privilege communication was unavailing since the privileged character of the articles was lost by their publication in a newspaper of general circulation.

•     also since malice is always presumed in the publication of defamatory matters in the absence of proof to the contrary, the question of privilege is immaterial.

•     Wenceslao was not, properly speaking, a "public official" nor a "public figure,"

•  that Petitioners could have performed his office as a newspaperman without necessarily transgressing the rights of Wenceslao

MR was filed by P but it was denied. Hence this petition.

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Petitioners' main contentions:

(1) CA should have seriously considered the findings of the DOJ and the Office of the President that Wenceslao was not sufficiently identified in the questioned articles, this notwithstanding that the degree of proof required in a preliminary investigation is merely prima facie evidence which is significantly less than the preponderance of evidence required in civil cases

(2) the subject articles constitute qualifiedly privileged communication

(3) the "public official doctrine" laid down in New York Times v. Sullivan is applicable to the case

(4) Wenceslao failed to prove actual malice on their part, and that the prosecutors of the City of Manila, the DOJ, and the Office of the President, had already resolved that there was no sufficient evidence to prove the existence of libel

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WON Petitioners are guilty of libel

Held: No

(1) private respondent was not sufficiently identifiable

•   the questioned articles written by Borjal do not identify Wenceslao as the organizer of the conference. (pR is the  Executive Director)

•     private respondent himself admitted that the FNCLT had several organizers and that he was only a part of the organization

•   private respondent himself entertained doubt that he was the person spoken of in Borjal's columns. The former even called up columnist Borjal to inquire if he (Wenceslao) was the one referred to in the subject articles.

(2) the subject articles constitute qualifiedly privileged communication

the enumeration under A354 is not an exclusive list of qualifiedly privileged communications since fair commentaries on matters of public interest are likewise privileged.

The rule on privileged communications had its genesis not in the nation's penal code but in the Bill of Rights of the Constitution guaranteeing freedom of speech and of the press. As early as 1918, in US v. Caete, the Court ruled that publications which are privileged for reasons of public policy are protected by the constitutional guaranty of freedom of speech. This constitutional right cannot be abolished by the mere failure of the legislature to give it express recognition in the statute punishing libels.

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 xxx 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.

There is no denying that the questioned articles dealt with matters of public interest. The declared objective of the conference, the composition of its members and participants, and the manner by which it was intended to be funded no doubt lend to its activities as being genuinely imbued with public interest. As such, it cannot but invite close scrutiny by the media obliged to inform the public of the legitimacy of the purpose of the activity and of the qualifications and integrity of the personalities behind it.

(3) New York Times v. Sullivan is applicable to the case

The raison d'etre for the New York Times doctrine was that to require critics of official conduct to guarantee the truth of all their factual assertions on pain of libel judgments would lead to self-censorship, since would-be critics would be deterred from voicing out their criticisms even if such were believed to be true, or were in fact true, because of doubt whether it could be proved or because of fear of the expense of having to prove it.

In the present case, private respondent a public figure within the purview of the New York Times ruling as well as in Ayers Production Pty., Ltd. v. Capulong.

x x x a person who, by his accomplishments, fame, mode of living, or by adopting a profession or calling which gives the public a legitimate interest in his doings, his affairs and his character, has become a public personage.

But even assuming ex-gratia argumenti that private respondent, despite the position he occupied in the FNCLT, would not qualify as a public figure, it does not necessarily follow that he could not validly be the subject of a public comment even if he was not a public official or at least a public figure, for he could be, as long as he was involved in a public issue. If a matter is a subject of public or general interest, it cannot suddenly become less so merely because a private individual is involved or because in some sense the individual did not voluntarily choose to become involved. The public's primary interest is in the event; the public focus is on the conduct of the participant and the content, effect and significance of the conduct, not the participant's prior anonymity or notoriety.

Concededly, petitioner Borjal may have gone overboard in the language employed describing the "organizer of the conference." But no matter how intemperate or deprecatory the utterances appear to be, the privilege is not to be defeated nor rendered inutile for, as succinctly expressed by Mr. Justice Brennan in New York Times v. Sullivan, "Debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust and wide open, and that it may well include vehement, caustic and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on the government and public officials."

(4) Private respondent Wenceslao failed to prove actual malice

While, generally, malice can be presumed from defamatory words, the privileged character of a communication destroys the presumption of malice. The onus of proving actual malice then lies on Wenceslao.

Primarily, private respondent failed to substantiate by preponderant evidence that petitioner was animated by a desire to inflict unjustifiable harm on his reputation, or that the articles were written and published without good motives or justifiable ends. On the other hand, Borjal have acted in good faith. Moved by a sense of civic duty and prodded by his responsibility as a newspaperman, he proceeded to expose and denounce what he perceived to be a public deception.

Furthermore, to be considered malicious, the libelous statements must be shown to have been written or published with the knowledge that they are false or in reckless disregard of whether they are false or not*.

The articles can hardly be said to have been written with knowledge that these are false or in reckless disregard of what is false or not. This is not to say however that allegations of Borjal are true. But nevertheless they are at least have been based on reasonable grounds formed after the columnist conducted several personal interviews and after considering the varied documentary evidence provided him by his sources.

Even assuming that the contents of the articles are false, mere error, inaccuracy or even falsity alone does not prove actual malice. Errors or misstatements are inevitable in any scheme of truly free expression and debate. Consistent with good faith and reasonable care, the press should not be held to account, to a point of suppression, for honest mistakes or imperfections in the choice of language. There must be some room for misstatement of fact as well as for misjudgment. Only by giving them much leeway and tolerance can they courageously and effectively function as critical agencies in our democracy.

DECISION: CA's decision reversed.

Note: A privileged communication may be either absolutely privileged or qualifiedly privileged.

Absolutely privileged communications are those which are not actionable even if the author has acted in bad faith. An example is found in Sec. 11, Art. VI, of the 1987 Constitution which exempts a member of Congress from liability for any speech or debate in the Congress or in any Committee thereof.

Qualifiedly privileged communications containing defamatory imputations are not actionable unless found to have been made without good intention or justifiable motive. To this genre belong "private communications" and "fair and true report without any comments or remarks."

Borjal's questioned writings are not within the exceptions of A354 of RPC as they are neither private communications nor fair and true report without any comments or remarks.

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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.[35] It is the essence of the crime of libel.

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*"Reckless disregard of what is false or not" means that the defendant entertains serious doubt as to the truth of the publication, or that he possesses a high degree of awareness of their probable falsity.

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Mr. Justice Malcolm expressed in U.S. v. Bustos:

"the interest of society and the maintenance of good government demand a full discussion of public affairs. Complete liberty to comment on the conduct of public men is a scalpel in the case of free speech. The sharp incision of its probe relieves the abscesses of officialdom. Men in public life may suffer under a hostile and unjust accusation; the wound may be assuaged by the balm of a clear conscience. A public official must not be too thin-skinned with reference to comments upon his official acts.”

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If there is freedom of the press, ought there not also be freedom from the press? It is in this sense that self-regulation as distinguished from self-censorship becomes the ideal mean for, as Mr. Justice Frankfurter has warned, "Without x x x a lively sense of responsibility, a free press may readily become a powerful instrument of injustice."