SENATE minority leader Aquilino Pimentel Jr.
and Sen. Francis Escudero on Monday renewed their call for the
decriminalization of libel after the Supreme Court issued a
circular instructing all judges to give preference to the
imposition of monetary penalty instead of imprisonment for those
who will be convicted of libel.
"While the Supreme Court circular is a
welcome thing to the constantly besieged Philippine media, the
fact still remains that libel is still a criminal offense in
this country, thus the pressure is still there that can be used
by people with malicious intent against members of the fourth
estate," Escudero said.
Pimentel said the circular issued by Chief
Justice Reynato Puno is a virtual clarion call to Congress to
legislate a new libel law in which people found guilty of libel
will be fined instead of jailed.
Pimentel asked Escudero, chairman of the
Committee on Justice and Human Rights, to convene a public
hearing on the pending bills to decriminalize libel and to ready
the measure for plenary deliberation.
"The Senate should pass the bill
decriminalizing libel. This is not a matter of personal
advocacy. This is a matter of logic and reason because the
country’s libel law is antiquated," Pimentel said. "And if you
go by the example of many civilized countries in the world
today, the United States included, they don’t jail people
anymore for libel."
Escudero said: "We really need to reform our
libel law because the existing ones we have right now is no
longer applicable to the present situation. Recent events have
indicated vicious cycles of impunity among authorities against
the press. Libel is just one form that can be used against them
by these quarters."
The Revised Penal Code of the Philippines
defines libel as "a public and malicious imputation of a crime,
vice or defect, whether real or not, tending to cause the
dishonor of a person or to blacken the memory of the dead."
Explaining the rationale behind the circular,
Puno said: "If you review the cases of libel, you will find out
that a lot of times, the act is committed with honest
intentions. Therefore, a member of the media who commits this
kind of an act, to our mind, need not be penalized by
imprisonment."
The Chief Justice further said that the
payment of a fine "would already satisfy the intent of the law
to punish the culprit."
Pimentel noted that Puno was very emphatic in clarifying that
despite the issuance of the circular, libel remains a crime
unless Congress enacts a law decriminalizing libel. – JP
Lopez
