ANOTHER case of tyrannical law-enforcement has happened. This time in Cagayan province. Malacañang must bring pressure to bear on the law-enforcers and the judge involved in this shocking abuse of power.

Melvin Gascon tells the story in the Inquirer’s Saturday October 20th issue under the headline “Cagayan anti-mining leader arrested over Facebook post.”

The story narrates that “the leader of an anti-mining group in Cagayan was arrested Thursday [October 18] for posting an allegedly libelous account about a mining issue on her Facebook page in May last year.”

Esperlita Garcia is the president of the Gonzaga Alliance for Environmental Protection. That organization, Melvin Gascon’s report says, has led “the opposition to the magnetite sand extraction project operated by Chinese firms in Gonzaga. The companies were allowed to mine magnetitite sand by the Cagayan provincial government.”

The anti-mining activist said “she was arrested at her home in Calayan, Gonzaga, Cagayan, on the strength of a warrant issued by Judge Conrado Tabaco of the Regional Trial Court of Aparri.” Gascon’s quotes her as saying that it bothers her “how the prosecutors and the judge determined that I should be arrested when I know that the law that supposedly punishes online libel was passed only this year and was even (restrained) by the Supreme Court.”

She was referring to Republic Act No. 10175 or the Anti-Cybercrime Act of 2012. Issuing a 90-day temporary restraining order (TRO), the Supreme Court two weeks ago granted the petitions to halt the implementation of this law. Several of the law’s authors announced they would urgently file laws to amend RA 10175 because of its onerous provisions.

Malacañang-certified measure
It was a Malacañang-certified measure. Media organizations and groups of human rights lawyers, press freedom watchdogs and newspaper editorials (including The Times) and opinion columns criticized it as a law against the basic human freedom of expression. Critics of the new law held protest marches and demonstrations. As a result several co-authors of it have disowned the law and four senators have vowed to work for its amendment.

On October 9, the Supreme Court stopped the new law’s implementation with a TRO. The High Court also asked the respondent government officials as well as the Solicitor General to respond in 10 days. This means the respondents, among whom are Executive Secretary Paquito Ochoa Jr, Justice Secretary Leila de Lima and Interior and Local Government Secretary Mar Roxas, should already have filed their written response by today. The TRO is for 120 days. This means the oral arguments on the case will be on Jan 15 next year. Which further means that, if ever the SC justices to allow the government to implement the law, it will not be earlier than the second have of January 2013.

So why, did the prosecutor, the judge and the National Bureau of Investigation and, presumably, police authorities act as if the Cybercrime Prevention law were already in force?

The libel charge was filed by Gonzaga Mayor Carlito Pentecostes Jr. The mayor accused Ms. Garcia of libeling him in her Facebook page where she had posted a report about “an aborted anti-mining rally in Gonzaga town on April 30, 2011.”

Gascon’s Inquirer story quotes Ms. Garcia saying she was merely giving a factual account of what had transpired during the rally where she quoted the mayor before demonstrators at St. Anthony Academy in Gonzaga.

Gascon also quotes her saying the arrest warrant “shocked me because I had not received any notice about the case since I filed my counter-affidavit last year.”

Happily for Ms. Garcia the Department of Justice in Tuguegarao City has sensible officials, one whom “supported Garcia’s objection, saying there was no law yet against libelous statements made online.” This official told the Inquirer, “The reason the cybercrime law was passed was that the provisions of the Revised Penal Code do not embrace online libel. But even that law (RA 10175) is not yet in effect.”

Ms. Garcia is 62. She said, “I am a senior citizen but I was treated like a hardened criminal. They did not even give me a chance to bathe or change from my house clothes. They just dragged me into a car.”

Gascon’s report said, “The agents brought Garcia to the NBI regional office in Tuguegarao City, about three hours from Gonzaga, where she was detained overnight Thursday.” Then, “On Friday, she was released after posting P10,000 bail.”

Green Convergence condemns arrest
The arrest has agitated media and environmental-protection groups. Yesterday, the Green Convergence for Safe Food, Healthy Environment and Sustainable Economy (Green Convergence), condemned the arrest of Esperlita Garcia.

“What is the basis of this arrest? Publicizing information is not libelous and should not be stopped whether it appears in print or online,” said Marie Marciano, vice president of Green Convergence. “Surely, the Cybercrime Prevention Law does not mean to prevent such publication. If this Law were the purported basis for her arrest, the judge who issued the warrant for her arrest should have known that the Law has not taken effect as the Supreme Court has issued a 120-day Temporary Restraining Order on it.”

We agree, with Green Convergence, the arrest is illegal. It is an abuse and Ms. Garcia’s human rights have been trampled on.

Also, yesterday, Malacañang’s Sec. Edwin Lacierda seemed to support the action of the prosecutor, judge, police and NBI for doing what they did to Ms. Garcia because, said he, the basis for the arrest was the libel case filed by the mayor.

This stand puzzles us. For Mr. Lacierda himself admitted at the press briefing that it puzzled him why the arrest was made when the alleged libel was published online and the Anti-Cybercrime Prevention Law has been stopped by the Supreme Court.