BY GLENDA TAYONA and IAN PAUL CORDERO
ILOILO – Former provincial administrator Manuel “Boy” Mejorada, a critic of Gov. Arthur Defensor Sr., was arrested at his house in Pavia town for five counts of libel early evening yesterday. But from the municipal police station where he was initially taken for detention, Mejorada was transferred to a hospital in Iloilo City. His blood pressure shot up.
A month ago the Iloilo City Prosecutor’s Office recommended the filing of cyber libel charges against Mejorada. Defensor accused him on Jan. 23, 2019 of violating Republic Act 10175 or the Cyber Crime Prevention Act of 2012.
Iloilo Provincial Police Office’s (IPPO) Intelligence Section head Major Jonathan Pinuela served Mejorada the arrest warrant around 6:30 p.m. together with Pavia policemen.
Mejorada, who hosted a radio block-time program during the campaign period for the recent May 13 midterm elections, initially questioned his arrest, said Pinuela, but the accused eventually relented.
The warrant of arrest was issued by Regional Trial Court Judge Victorino Oliveros-Maniba Jr.
Pinuela said they received a copy of the arrest warrant on Thursday, June 6, but because they could not locate Mejorada they were only able to serve it yesterday.
As of this writing last night, Mejorada was under hospital arrest at St. Paul’s Hospital Iloilo.
Mejorada served as provincial administrator during the administration of Defensor’s predecessor, the late Gov. Niel Tupas Sr.
GOVERNOR’S COMPLAINT
Defensor cited five Facebook posts of Mejorada on Sept. 26, Oct. 1, Nov. 15, and Nov. 20, 2018 where he was called corrupt and other similar accusations.
“I felt humiliated, embarrassed and at the same time angry” over Mejorada’s Facebook posts,” Defensor stated.
Defensor, in his complaint, said Mejorada started attacking him when Cong. Ferjenel Biron (4th District) announced he would run for governor against Cong. Arthur “Toto” Defensor Jr. (3rd District), the governor’s son.
In his Sept. 26 Facebook post, Mejorada alleged that Defensor “used millions and millions of pesos in DAP (Disbursement Acceleration Program) funds to buy votes in the May 2013 elections.”
He also wrote that the governor was mad at him for so-called exposés “because his bubble armor disguising him as clean and honest was pricked and burst.”
In another post made on Oct. 1, Mejorada repeated his accusation against Defensor on the DAP funds, asserting that the governor “misused and misappropriated” them during the 2013 elections.
Mejorada, in the same post, wrote that Defensor refused to address the DAP issue “by turning a deaf ear…hoping that his supposed clean image will allow his son to survive election day.”
“As he refuses to confront the issue head-on, he has shown that his corruption runs so deeply that he won’t even confess to his sins,” Mejorada wrote about Defensor.
In a separate post on Oct. 1, Mejorada claimed Defensor had been caught red-handed to have misappropriated public funds to buy votes in 2013 but, he added, the governor refused to admit and to apologize to the people.
Meanwhile, on Nov. 15 Mejorada posted on Facebook that Defensor violated the ban on the disbursement of public funds during the 2013 election campaign period by paying the contractor of the Dumangas-Balabag Provincial Road on April 30, 2013.
“Defensor’s dirty politics continues to be unmasked. This guy plays with disregard for the law and rules and regulations. He is also a dishonorable man,” Mejorada wrote.
Five days later, Mejorada alleged on Facebook he received word from a friend that “old man” Defensor had now become “the laughingstock in the cafeteria of the Iloilo Capitol!”
Mejorada added: “I guess that’s what Defensor gets for pretending to be clean and honest when in truth, he is corrupt to the core.”
CITY PROSECUTOR’S RESOLUTION
“Clearly it can be shown that respondent in his Facebook posts imputed upon the private complainant the possession of a vice or defect, or any act or omission, status or circumstances which tends to dishonor or discredit the private complainant,” read the resolution penned by Prosecutor II Ma. Nazelle Biliran-Infante and approved by City Prosecutor Peter Baliao on April 29.
Mejorada argued that his Facebook posts fell under the purview of fair commentaries and as such could be considered as qualified privilege communications as his posts were only made to make the public aware of Defensor’s acts which the governor did not controvert.
However, according to the city prosecutor’s office, it could still be shown that Mejorada’s imputation of an act or omission against Defensor was defamation against the latter’s character and reputation sufficient to cause him embarrassment and social humiliation.
“The statement made affects one’s sensibilities as there was evident imputation of a crime when respondent commented that the private complainant ‘misused and misappropriated government funds to buy votes’, ‘worst among the corrupt’ and called a ‘dishonorable man,’” the prosecutor’s office added.
Citing Arturo Borjal et al. vs Court of Appeals et al, the city prosecutor stated: “To reiterate, 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 discretable 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 discretable imputation is directed against a public person in his public capacity, it is not necessarily actionable. In order that such discretable 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 reasonable be inferred from the facts.”
On the issue at hand, the prosecutor’s office said, Majorada’s Facebook posts could not be entirely considered as a factual report of Defensor’s alleged commission of a crime as in the first place it was Mejorada himself who initiated or filed the criminal and administrative charges against Defensor, likewise his commentaries included the labeling of private complainant as to have committed a crime, thus showing malice and ill motive on his part./PN
