BY REY PANALIGAN
*
REGIONAL Trial Court judges have “strongly denounced the abusive attacks and criticisms hurled against the courts, judges, and the Judiciary” in connection with the decision handed down on the cyber libel case of social news network Rappler.
Last week, Manila RTC Judge Reinelda Estacio Montesa convicted Rappler Executive Editor Maria Ressa and former researcher Reynaldo Santos Jr. guilty of cyber libel and sentenced each of them to six months up to six years in prison.
Ressa and Santos were also ordered to pay complainant-businessman Wilfredo Keng the amount of P400,000 as moral and exemplary damages.
Since the handing down of the verdict last June 15, Montesa, the trial courts, and the Judiciary as a whole have been subject of various criticisms.
Rappler, itself in its statement, said the RTC’s decision “sets a dangerous precedent not only for journalists but for everyone online.”
“The decision today (June 15) marks not the rule of law, but the rule of law twisted to suit the interests of those in power who connive to satisfy their mutually beneficial personal and political agenda,” Rappler said.
“Today marks diminished freedom and more threats to democratic rights supposedly guaranteed by the Philippine Constitution, especially in the context of a looming anti-terrorism law,” it added.
In a statement issued by the Philippine Judges Association (PJA) through its president Judge Felix P. Reyes, the judges said “for the past several days, the Philippine judiciary as a whole, has been the recipient of virulent attacks from the public.”
The PJA said “some of the assaults went to the edge of portraying that the ‘rule of law in the Philippines is broken and democracy is under threat.’”
