Tomas cleared of libel charges

Fiscal says Rama’s charges lack evidence, urges former mayor not to be onion-skinned

THE Office of the Cebu City Prosecutor has junked the charges former Cebu City mayor Michael Rama filed against Mayor Tomas Osmeña over the latter’s Facebook posts accusing him of being a drug addict last year.

Prosecutor Naruzen Delfin-Lorete dismissed for lack of evidence complaints of slander/grave oral defamation and violation of the cybercrime law against Osmeña.

Being an elected official, Rama should not be onion-skinned especially on issues of public concern, the prosecutor pointed out.

“He should embrace the fact that his acts are always interesting to the public eye. How he behaves or conducts himself in public is prone to scrutiny,” read Lorete’s five-page resolution.

The case stemmed from the complaints that Rama filed before the City Prosecutor’s Office accusing Osmeña of five counts of online libel and two counts of slander and grave oral defamation.

Rama’s son, Mikel, filed the libel charges against Osmeña for allegedly accusing the former mayor of being a drug addict on social and print media.

Proceed

Osmeña said Rama may now proceed in filing another libel case against him.

After Rama challenged Osmeña to a drug test, he said he planned to file a libel case against Osmeña for calling him a drug addict and a drug protector.

“Rama thinks he is a good lawyer, that’s why I told him to sue me again for libel. Go ahead and sue me. That’s not important, the important thing is that the people know that all the drug problems in the city came out during his six years as mayor. And we have to right question why is that,”

Osmeña said he is pointing out the drug problems “in defense of netizens” who he said are being intimidated publicly by Rama with lawsuits.

Among other incidents and statements in media reports, Osmeña cited Rama’s reaction to the raid on a drug den beside City Hall, where some employees of the City allegedly went to use shabu.

He said Rama now wants to move Carbon Police Station and the tourist police office—the units closest to the area— away from the drug den.

Pattern

“In my opinion—and in the opinion of many others—by just looking at his pattern of behavior in the past few years, seeing how he has almost no interest in fixing the problem of drugs in Cebu, and reading his statement that drug testing is ‘not good for any public official because it would bring them to public scrutiny,’ you cannot ignore the possibility that in the city of Cebu, Mayor Rama has a serious drug problem,” Osmeña’s post read.

Denied

Rama had repeatedly denied having any connections with slain alleged top drug personality Jeffrey “Jaguar” Diaz or any of his affiliates, or that he received drug money in his 20 years in public service.

Replying to the charges, Osmeña said his Facebook post was “a way of sharing his thoughts, emotions, comments and sentiments and opinions as an ordinary and private constituent of Cebu City.”

“All (posts) were made in the ex- ercise of his freedom of expression to hold the complainant accountable in the shortcomings in his official duties and an expression of his discontentment of the administration’s campaign against illegal drugs,” said Osmeña in his counter-affidavit.

In the joint resolution, Prosecutor Lorete cited the Supreme Court ruling in the case of United States vs Bustos, which guarantees “complete liberty to comment on the conduct of public men in a scalpel in the case of free speech.”

Osmeña’s Facebook posts were “purely his opinion based on the events unfolding in the society,” the prosecutor said.

“The intent to defame or the element of malice has not surfaced from those remarks,” said Lorete. Osmeña told reporters.