Dance prof sues critics for Internet defamation, libel

Amid the absence of law covering libelous posts on the Internet, a dance professor on Thursday filed charges against his colleagues for allegedly besmirching his reputation in an article on a website. On Thursday, Dr. Matthew Santamaria filed a complaint against his colleagues from the Alunalun Dance Circle for allegedly posting statements on a website, accusing him of copying dance choreography concepts from his mentor. “When my name, my honor is being questioned, for a professor, that is a huge thing," he said. The allegedly defamatory statement was supposedly posted on the website by a respondent in the criminal complaint, Rosalie Matillac. However, in a telephone interview, Matillac denied that her group was out to destroy his reputation.
“Walang kaming malisya sa paglabas ng artikulo tungkol sa usapain ng igal o pangalay," she said. (There was no malice when we published the article about the issue of igal or pangalay.) “Ito ay isang paglilinaw lang sa isang isyu tungkol sa sining, kultura at tradisyon ng ating mga katutubo. Ito ay pagprotekta sa intellectual property rights ng aming guro at punong researcher na si Ligaya Fernando-Amilbangsa." (This was only a clarification on an issue about arts, culture, and indigenous traditions. This is about protecting the intellectual property rights of our teacher and chief researcher, Professor Ligaya Fernando-Amilbangsa.) The prosecutor handling the case, Atty. Dorothy Alaroyo-Padilla, admitted that this was no ordinary libel case because the alleged defamatory statements were published on the Internet. Padilla said, “For now, we really don’t have rules on procedure insofar as the Internet [is concerned]." Internet not covered by libel laws? Atty. Marichu Lambino said present laws do not cover the Internet when it comes to the publication of libelous statements. Lambino is the chairperson of the Journalism Department of the University of the Philippines College of Mass Communication. “Ina-apply na lang nila yung word na ‘published’ o nailathala sa Internet," she said, referring to lawyers who insist that the country’s prevailing libel law is applicable. However, she pointed out that at present, the Supreme Court has yet to rule whether under the libel law online statements can be considered as publications, similar to print media and radio or television broadcasts. In lieu of filing libel charges, one can choose to get the offending online statement taken down from the Internet, Lambino said. She suggested writing the website administrator a ‘demand letter’ to remove the post. She said Google can also be requested to erase vestiges of the defamatory statement from the search engine’s cache memory. She explained, “Kung tinanggal na ng author yun at nai-check mo na na wala na doon, pwede kang pumunta sa Google administrator – nasa ‘Tools’ siya – at sabihin mo na itong URL [universal resource locator] o post na ito wala na, tinanggal na ito ng site administrator." (After checking that the defamatory statements have been taken down, click on the ‘Tools’ section of your web browser to inform Google that the offensive post’s URL or universal resource locator had already been removed by the website administrator.) According to an article by Ed Lingao and Jaemark Tordecilla of the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ) the first libel suit against a blog was filed in 2005. "The first libel suit against a Philippine blog was filed in August that year (2005) against the institutional blog of the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism by Jonathan Tiongco, a sound engineer presented by then environment and natural resources secretary Mike Defensor in order to question the authenticity of the ‘Hello Garci’ tapes," they wrote in the article posted on GMANews.TV in April last year. Since then several libel suits arising from Internet defamation have cropped up. However, none have yet led to a court ruling that libel was actually committed. – With a report by Joseph Morong/LBG/VVP, GMANews.TV