Cebu Citizens-Press Council

RESOLUTION ON DECRIMINALIZING LIBEL
10th Quarterly Meeting
Cebu Citizens-Press Council
March 24, 2008

Knowing that

There are at least six (6) bills filed with the Senate–SB 918 (Sen. Edgardo Angara), SB 110 (Sen. Mar Roxas), SB 223 (Sen. Loren Legarda), SB 1403 (Sen. Francis Escudero), SB 5 (Sen. Jinggoy Estrada) and SB 2108 (Sen. Richard Gordon)–and one bill with the House: HB 2802 (Speaker Prospero Nograles), all aimed to amend some provisions on libel in the Revised Penal Code and special laws.

All the bills are motivated by public good and aimed to enhance press freedom without diminishing press accountability;

The press and media organizations such as the Cebu Citizens-Press Council (CCPC) are committed to protect freedom of the press and heighten journalists’ sense of responsibility;

Legislation affecting media also affects functions of the press in society, and thus newspapers, broadcast stations, and media-involved organizations like the CCPC, as well as media practitioners, have a large stake in how Congress will decide on those bills;

Affirming that

The CCPC works with the press and the public on issues affecting media, as in fact it has done with regard to the bills regarding libel in the Senate and the House, studying the proposals and consulting media practitioners about their experiences with libel complaints on their work and their personal lives;

NOW THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED by the Cebu Citizens-Press Council, meeting en banc in its first regular quarterly meeting for 2008, as it hereby resolves,

That it inform the House and the Senate through the authors and sponsors of the pending bills on libel, that the Cebu press, comprising both print and broadcast, supports the provisions in the said bills:

[1] Removing the penalty of imprisonment from the crime of libel;
[2] Keeping libel as a crime but retaining only the penalty of fine;
[3] Raising the fine as penalty but not in large amounts that community journalists cannot afford to pay;
[4] Limiting the venue of libel to the court of the province or city where the principal office of work and business of respondent journalists is located;
[5] Reducing prescriptive period of libel from one year to six months from publication;
[6] Exempting from liability any editor, publisher, newspaper or station manager, or news director who has not reviewed the alleged libelous material before printing or airing.

RESOLVED FURTHER that the position paper adopted by newspaper and broadcast editors and representatives of the Cebu Media Legal Aid (Cemla) at a meeting held last March 12, 2008 at Cebu City Marriott Hotel be made as annex to and part of this resolution.

APPROVED AND SIGNED this 24th day of March, 2008 at the MBF Cebu Press Center in Sudlon, Lahug, Cebu City, Philippines.