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A Makati court on Thursday found a newspaper
publisher guilty of libel from published articles linking the F.
Arthur Villaraza and Carpio Villaraza Cruz (CVC) law firm to the
controversial Ninoy Aquino International Airport Terminal 3 project.
In a 15-page decision, Judge
Winlove Dumayas of the Makati Regional Trial Court sentenced Ninez
Cacho-Olivares, editor-in-chief and publisher of The Daily Tribune,
from six months to two years, 10 months and 40 days in correctional
prison.
The court also ordered her to pay
P5 million for moral damages and P33,732 plus interest for actual
damages to the law office, which is now named Villaraza, Cruz,
Marcelo and Angcangco.
The case stemmed from an article
written by Olivares and published in The Daily Tribune’s June 23,
2003 issue alleging that then Ombudsman Simeon Marcelo chose people
supposedly “connected” to the law firm to handle a complaint by
Asia’s Emerging Dragons Corp. (AEDC) against the winning bidder of
the Terminal 3 project and former secretaries of the Department of
Transportation and Communications.
CVC, popularly called “The
Firm” for its past associations with former presidents and having
been the counsel of the First Family, has filed 47 other libel cases
against Olivares and other reporters over a series of critical
articles published in The Daily Tribune and the tabloid Banat
Tonight.
AEDC is the company that
originally submitted a proposal for the construction of Terminal 3
but lost the subsequent bidding to the Philippine International Air
Terminals Corp.
“The title of the article alone
already imputes to the private complainants deceit and dishonesty
and the manipulation of government agencies to the benefit of the
entity AEDC referred to in the article. A reading of the article
would confirm the readers’ impression of the firm’s deceit and
dishonesty,” the court said.
Dumayas also dismissed Olivares’
defense that the article is a privileged communication because it
was not written and published in reckless disregard, and it
constitutes fair and reasonable comment on a matter of public
interest.
In the subject article, Olivares
called lawyer Arthur Villaraza, a managing partner of CVC, as the
“President’s [Gloria Arroyo] personal lawyer,” while
insinuating that the law firm has a hold in the Arroyo
administration’s legal arena and has pervasive power and influence
over the judiciary and other government offices.
Olivares also claimed that then
Ombudsman Simeon Marcelo, also a former senior partner of CVC, had
planned to turn over the case of the losing bidder for the Terminal
3 project to the deputy ombudsman of Luzon after he was exposed as
having worked with the CVC.
After her sentencing, Olivares
told reporters she had expected that she would be convicted.
--Jayson Cruz Luna
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