In the recent case of ALFONSO T. YUCHENGCO vs. THE MANILA CHRONICLE PUBLISHING CORPORATION, et. al., G.R. No. 184315, November 25, 2009, the basic doctrine pronounced by the Philippine Supreme Court was that “when malice in fact is proven, assertions and proofs that the libelous articles are qualifiedly privileged communications are futile, since being qualifiedly privileged communications merely prevents the presumption of malice from attaching in a defamatory imputation.”
In his complaint, multi-millionaire Filipino-Chinese businessman Alfonso T. Yuchengco alleged that in the last quarter of 1994, Chronicle Publishing Corporation published in the Manila Chronicle a series of defamatory articles against him. In two of the subject articles (November 10 and 12, 1993 issues), he was imputed to be a “Marcos crony” or a “Marcos-Romualdez crony,” which term according to him was commonly used and understood in Philippine media to describe an individual who was a recipient of special and underserving favors from former President Ferdinand E. Marcos and/or his brother-in-law Benjamin “Kokoy” Romualdez due to special and extra-ordinary closeness to either or both, and which favors allowed an individual to engage in illegal and dishonorable business activities.
The plaintiff claimed that the said articles further branded him as a mere front or dummy for the Marcos and Romualdez clans in Benguet Corporation, which company sought to take-over the management of Oriental Petroleum Mineral Corporation. He contended that such an imputation was untrue since his holdings in Benguet Corporation were legally acquired by him.
Also, he was likewise accused of unsound and immoral business practices by insinuating that he wanted to take control of Oriental in order to divert its resources to rescue the debt-ridden Benguet Corporation. He claimed that the accusation was untrue since he was merely interested in being represented in the board thereof so as to protect his and his companies’ interest therein as shareholders.
The subject articles insinuated that he personally and intentionally caused the failure of Benguet Corporation and that if even if he ever assumed control of Oriental, it would suffer the same fate as the former. According to him, at the time he assumed chairmanship of Benguet Corporation, it was already experiencing financial downturns caused by plummeting world prices of gold and unprofitable investments it ventured into.
Moreover, one of the articles portrayed him as being an unfair and uncaring employer when the employees of Grepalife Corporation, of which he is the Chairman, staged a strike, when the truth being that he had nothing to do with it. And that if his group took over Oriental, it would experience the same labor problems as in Grepalife.
Furthermore, the subject articles accused him of inducing Rizal Commercial Banking Corporation to violate the provisions of the General Banking Act on DOSRI loans. He denied the imputations believing that there was nothing irregular in the RCBC-Piedras transaction for the acquisition of shares of Oriental.
Also, the plaintiff claimed that the subject articles insinuated that he induced others to disobey lawful orders of the Securities and Exchange Commission when the truth was that the officials of RCBC and Alcorn never defied any SEC order, and that if ever they did, he never induced them to do so.
Finally, the plaintiff asserted that the subject articles imputed to him the derogatory tag of “corporate raider,” implying that he was seeking to profit for something he did not work for. He denies the imputation since he acquired his stake in Oriental for adequate and valuable consideration at the time when no one was willing to bailout the government from its difficult and losing position thereto.
In their Answer, the defendants denied liability claiming that the subject articles were not defamatory since they were composed and published in good faith and only after having ascertained their contents. In any event, they claimed that these articles were privileged and/or constituted reasonable and balance[d] comments on matters of legitimate public interest which cannot serve as basis for the finding of libel against them. They likewise alleged that they were acting within the bounds of constitutionally guaranteed freedom of speech and of the press.
Furthermore, they contended that since plaintiff was a public figure, and assuming that the articles were indeed defamatory, they could not be held liable for damages since they were not impelled by actual malice in the composition thereof. They did not compose and/or publish said articles with the knowledge that they contained falsehoods, or with reckless disregard on whether or not they contained falsehood.
On 8 November 2002, the Regional Trial Court rendered its decision in favor of petitioner Alfonso T. Yuchengco awarding the latter more than 100 Million Pesos in damages.
The respondents appealed to the Court of Appeals.
On 18 March 2008, the Court of Appeals promulgated its decision affirming in toto the RTC Decision. Respondents filed a Motion for Reconsideration. On 28 August 2008, the Court of Appeals reversed itself in an Amended Decision.
Hence, Yuchengco went up to the Supreme Court questioning the amended decision of the CA.
May I digest below the doctrinal pronouncements of the Supreme Court in the abovecited case. Thus:
1. Libel is defined in Article 353 of the Revised Penal Code, which provides:
Art. 353. Definition of Libel. – A libel is a public and malicious imputation of a crime, or of a vice or defect, real or imaginary, or any act, omission, condition, status, or circumstance tending to cause the dishonor, discredit, or contempt of a natural or juridical person, or to blacken the memory of one who is dead.
2. Based on this definition, this Court has held that four elements constitute the crime of libel, namely (a) defamatory imputation tending to cause dishonor, discredit or contempt; (b) malice, either in law or in fact; (c) publication; and (d) identifiability of the person defamed.
3. Despite being defined in the Revised Penal Code, libel can also be instituted, like in the case at bar, as a purely civil action, the cause of action for which is provided by Article 33 of the Civil Code, which provides:
Article 33. In cases of defamation, fraud, and physical injuries, a civil action for damages, entirely separate and distinct from the criminal action, may be brought by the injured party. Such civil action shall proceed independently of the criminal prosecution, and shall require only a preponderance of evidence.
4. Defamation, which includes libel and slander, means the offense of injuring a person's character, fame or reputation through false and malicious statements. It is that which tends to injure reputation or to diminish esteem, respect, goodwill or confidence in the plaintiff, or to excite derogatory feelings or opinions about the plaintiff. It is the publication of anything that is injurious to the good name or reputation of another or tends to bring him into disrepute. In determining whether certain utterances are defamatory, the words used are to be construed in their entirety and taken in their plain, natural and ordinary meaning, as they would naturally be understood by persons hearing (or reading, as in libel) them, unless it appears that they were used and understood in another sense.
5. Even a cursory reading of the subject articles would show the intention of the writers to injure the reputation, credit and virtue of Yuchengco and expose him to public hatred, discredit, contempt and ridicule. The indirect manner in which the articles attributed the insults to Yuchengco (e.g., “the money involved came from depositors, and not from Yuchengco”) does not lessen the culpability of the writers and publishers thereof, but instead makes the defamatory imputations even more effective. Words calculated to induce suspicion are sometimes more effective to destroy reputation than false charges directly made. Ironical and metaphorical language is a favored vehicle for slander.
6. In sum, this Court upholds the ruling of the trial court and the Court of Appeals that the subject articles contain defamatory imputations. All of the following imputations: (1) the labeling of Yuchengco as a Marcos crony, who took advantage of his relationship with the former President to gain unwarranted benefits; (2) the insinuations that Yuchengco induced others to disobey the lawful orders of SEC; (3) the portrayal of Yuchengco as an unfair and uncaring employer due to the strike staged by the employees of Grepalife; (4) the accusation that he induced RCBC to violate the provisions of the General Banking Act on DOSRI loans; and (5) the tagging of Yuchengco as a “corporate raider” seeking to profit from something he did not work for, all exposed Yuchengco to public contempt and ridicule, for they imputed to him a condition that was dishonorable.
7. Defamatory words must refer to an ascertained or ascertainable person, and that person must be the plaintiff. Statements are not libelous unless they refer to an ascertained or ascertainable person. However, the obnoxious writing need not mention the libeled party by name. It is sufficient if it is shown that the offended party is the person meant or alluded to.
8. Malice connotes ill will or spite and speaks not in response to duty but merely to injure the reputation of the person defamed, and implies an intention to do ulterior and unjustifiable harm. It is present when it is shown that the author of the libelous remarks made such remarks with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard as to the truth or falsity thereof.
9. Malice, however, does not necessarily have to be proven. There are two types of malice – malice in law and malice in fact. Malice in law is a presumption of law. It dispenses with the proof of malice when words that raise the presumption are shown to have been uttered. It is also known as constructive malice, legal malice, or implied malice. On the other hand, malice in fact is a positive desire and intention to annoy and injure. It may denote that the defendant was actuated by ill will or personal spite. It is also called express malice, actual malice, real malice, true malice, or particular malice.
10. In this jurisdiction, malice in law is provided in Article 354 of the Revised Penal Code, which also enumerates exceptions thereto:
Art. 354. Requirement of publicity. - Every defamatory imputation is presumed to be malicious, even if it be true, if no good intention and justifiable motive for making it is shown, except in the following cases:
1. A private communication made by any person to another in the performance of any legal, moral or social duty; and
2. A fair and true report, made in good faith, without any comments or remarks, of any judicial, legislative or other official proceedings which are not of confidential nature, or of any statement, report or speech delivered in said proceedings, or of any other act performed by public officers in the exercise of their functions.
There is, thus, a presumption of malice in the case of every defamatory imputation, where there is no showing of a good intention or justifiable motive for making such imputation.
11. The exceptions provided in Article 354 are also known as qualifiedly privileged communications. The enumeration under said article is, however, not an exclusive list of qualifiedly privileged communications since fair commentaries on matters of public interest are likewise privileged. They are known as qualifiedly privileged communications, since they are merely exceptions to the general rule requiring proof of actual malice in order that a defamatory imputation may be held actionable. In other words, defamatory imputations written or uttered during any of the three classes of qualifiedly privileged communications enumerated above – (1) a private communication made by any person to another in the performance of any legal, moral or social duty; (2) a fair and true report, made in good faith, without any comments or remarks, of any judicial, legislative or other official proceedings which are not of confidential nature, or of any statement, report or speech delivered in said proceedings, or of any other act performed by public officers in the exercise of their functions; and (3) fair commentaries on matters of public interest – may still be considered actionable if actual malice is proven. This is in contrast with absolutely privileged communications, wherein the imputations are not actionable, even if attended by actual malice:
12. A communication is said to be absolutely privileged when it is not actionable, even if its author has acted in bad faith. This class includes statements made by members of Congress in the discharge of their functions as such, official communications made by public officers in the performance of their duties, and allegations or statements made by the parties or their counsel in their pleadings or motions or during the hearing of judicial proceedings, as well as the answers given by witnesses in reply to questions propounded to them, in the course of said proceedings, provided that said allegations or statements are relevant to the issues, and the answers are responsive or pertinent to the questions propounded to said witnesses. Upon the other hand, conditionally or qualifiedly privileged communications are those which, although containing defamatory imputations, would not be actionable unless made with malice or bad faith.
13. In the case at bar, both the trial court and the Court of Appeals found that the publication of the subject articles was attended by actual malice. In the instant case, there is preponderance of evidence showing that there exists malice in fact in the writing and publication of the subject libelous articles. As correctly found by the trial court, [petitioner] was able to show that [respondents] were animated by a desire to inflict unjustifiable harm on his reputation as shown by the timing and frequency of the publication of the defamatory articles. Further, as previously stated, [respondents] failed to show that they had any good intention and justifiable motive for composing and publishing the vicious and malicious accusations against [petitioner].
Moreover, [respondents] published or caused the publication of the subject defamatory articles with reckless disregard as to the truth or falsity thereof. As previously stated, there is no proof that the contents of the subject articles are true or that the respondents exercised a reasonable degree of care before publishing the same. [Respondents] failed to present evidence showing that they verified the truth of any of the subject articles, especially in light of the categorical denial by [petitioner] of the accusations made against him.
[Respondents] did not exercise reasonable degree of care or good faith efforts to arrive at the truth before publishing the subject defamatory articles. [Respondents] did not present any competent evidence to establish the truth of their allegations against [petitioner]. There was no showing that [respondents] made any attempt to talk to [petitioner] to verify the statements contained in the defamatory articles, especially considering the gravity of the accusations made against [petitioner]. At the very least, [respondents] should have exercised efforts to talk to [petitioner] to clarify the issues and get his side. [Respondents’] failure to verify the truth of the information from [petitioner] himself is in itself an evidence of their lack of bona fide efforts to verify the accuracy of her information.
The incessant publication of the defamatory articles attacking the honor and reputation of [petitioner] is also proof of [respondents’] malicious scheme to malign and defame the name, honor and reputation of [petitioner]. As earlier pointed out, in a span of one (1) month, [respondents] wrote and published and/or caused the publication of seven (7) libelous articles against [petitioner] attacking his honor and reputation as a distinguished businessman, philanthropist, his political inclination, and as an employer in his insurance company. In fact, the presence of malice is made more evident by [respondents’] baseless and uncalled for attack on the person of [petitioner] as an employer.
Such baseless and malicious accusation of [respondents] on [petitioner] only proves the intention of the [respondents] in publishing the defamatory articles was not to present an unbiased report on current issues but to launch a personal attack on the very person of [petitioner].
14. As earlier explained, as correctly found by the trial court, even the timing of the publication of these subject articles is highly suspicious inasmuch as the subject libelous articles came out in the Manila Chronicle, a newspaper owned and under the control of [respondent] Coyiuto, around November to December of 1993, a couple of months prior to the January stockholders meeting of Oriental Corporation. From this, it is logical to conclude that the publication of the subject defamatory articles defaming the good name and reputation of [petitioner] is but a part of [a] grand scheme to create a negative image of [petitioner] so as to negatively affect [petitioner’s] credibility to the public, more particularly, to the then stockholders of Oriental Corporation. Worth noting also is the fact that the subject articles did not only portray [petitioner] in a bad light. Curiously, in these articles, [respondent] Coyiuto, a known rival of [petitioner], was portrayed as the underdog, the “David” and [petitioner] as the “Goliath” in their battle for control over Oriental Corporation. This does not escape the Court’s attention. These circumstances clearly indicate the presence of actual malice on the part of [respondents] in the publication of the subject libelous articles.
15. When malice in fact is proven, assertions and proofs that the libelous articles are qualifiedly privileged communications are futile, since being qualifiedly privileged communications merely prevents the presumption of malice from attaching to a defamatory imputation.
16. Finally, even if we assume for the sake of argument that actual malice was not proven in the case at bar, we nevertheless cannot adhere to the finding of the Court of Appeals in the Amended Decision that the subject articles were fair commentaries on matters of public interest, and thus fell within the scope of the third type of qualifiedly privileged communications.
17. In order to be considered as fair commentaries on matters of public interest, the individual to whom the defamatory articles were imputed should either be a public officer or a public figure.
18. In Borjal v. Court of Appeals, we stated that “the enumeration under Art. 354 is not an exclusive list of qualifiedly privileged communications since fair commentaries on matters of public interest are likewise privileged. We stated that the doctrine of fair commentaries means “that while in general every discreditable 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 discreditable imputation is directed against a public person in his public capacity, it is not necessarily actionable. In order that such discreditable 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.”
19. Again, this argument is unavailing to the petitioners. As we said, the respondent is a private individual, and not a public official or public figure. We are persuaded by the reasoning of the United States Supreme Court in Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc., [418 U. S. 323 (1974)] that a newspaper or broadcaster publishing defamatory falsehoods about an individual who is neither a public official nor a public figure may not claim a constitutional privilege against liability, for injury inflicted, even if the falsehood arose in a discussion of public interest.
20. In trying to prove that the subject articles delved on matters concerning public interest, the Court of Appeals insisted that Yuchengco was a public official or public figure, who “must not be too thin-skinned with reference to comment upon his official acts.” The Court of Appeals then noted that Yuchengco was, at the time of the Amended Decision, appointed as a Presidential Adviser on Foreign Affairs with Cabinet rank, and proceeded to enumerate the public positions held by Yuchengco through the years.
However, an examination of the subject articles reveals that the allegations therein pertain to Yuchengco’s private business endeavors and do not refer to his duties, functions and responsibilities as a Philippine Ambassador to China and Japan, or to any of the other public positions he occupied. A topic or story should not be considered a matter of public interest by the mere fact that the person involved is a public officer, unless the said topic or story relates to his functions as such. Assuming a public office is not tantamount to completely abdicating one’s right to privacy. Therefore, for the purpose of determining whether or not a topic is a matter of public interest, Yuchengco cannot be considered a public officer.
21. More commonly, those classed as public figures have thrust themselves to the forefront of particular public controversies in order to influence the resolution of the issues involved. In either event, they invite attention and comment. Third, this would impose an additional difficulty on trial court judges to decide which publications address issues of “general interest” and which do not. Even if the foregoing generalities do not obtain in every instance, the communications media are entitled to act on the assumption that public officials and public figures have voluntarily exposed themselves to increased risk of injury from defamatory falsehood concerning them. No such assumption is justified with respect to a private individual. He has not accepted public office or assumed an “influential role in ordering society.” (Curtis Publishing Co. v. Butts, 388 U.S., at 164) He has relinquished no part of his interest in the protection of his own good name, and consequently he has a more compelling call on the courts for redress of injury inflicted by defamatory falsehood. Thus, private individuals are not only more vulnerable to injury than public officials and public figures; they are also more deserving of recovery. (Emphasis supplied.)
22. The records in the case at bar do not disclose any instance wherein Yuchengco had voluntarily thrust himself to the forefront of particular public controversies in order to influence the resolution of the issues involved. He cannot, therefore, be considered a public figure. Since Yuchengco, the person defamed in the subject articles, is neither as public officer nor a public figure, said articles cannot be considered as qualifiedly privileged communications even if they deal with matters of public concern.
In view of the foregoing, the Court was constrained to grant the Petition and reinstated the Decision of the trial court, as previously affirmed by the Court of Appeals in its original Decision. The Court, however, found the award of damages in the total amount of One Hundred Million Pesos by the trial court to be rather excessive given the circumstances. The Court, thus, further resolved to reduce the award of damages, as follows:
1. The damages for which Chronicle Publishing, Neil H. Cruz, Ernesto Tolentino, Noel Cabrera, Thelma San Juan, Gerry Zaragoza, Donna Gatdula, Raul Valino and Rodney Diola shall be jointly and severally liable under the first cause of action shall be reduced as follows:
a. The amount of moral damages shall be reduced from Ten Million Pesos (P10,000,000.00) to Two Million Pesos (P2,000,000.00); and
b. The amount of exemplary damages shall be reduced from Ten Million Pesos (P10,000,000.00) to Five Hundred Thousand Pesos (P500,000.00);
2. The damages for which Roberto Coyuito, Jr. and Chronicle Publishing shall be jointly and severally liable under the second cause of action shall be reduced as follows:
a. The amount of moral damages shall be reduced from Fifty Million Pesos (P50,000,000.00) to Twenty-Five Million Pesos (P25,000,000.00); and
b. The amount of exemplary damages shall be reduced from Thirty Million Pesos (P30,000,000.00) Ten Million Pesos (P10,000,000.00).
