CA junks ex-VP Binay’s libel case vs Trillanes

The Court of Appeals (CA) has affirmed with finality its decision junking the libel case filed by former vice president Jejomar Binay against former senator Antonio Trillanes IV over his implication that Binay was involved in an alleged P100 million-a-year racket on “ghost” senior citizens.

In a two-page resolution dated Jan. 24, the CA’s Fourth Division said Binay was not able to raise new arguments that would warrant the reconsideration of the appellate court’s June 27, 2023 decision.

The CA, in its June 27, 2023 decision, upheld the ruling issued by a lower court in November 2020 that granted the demurrer to evidence filed by Trillanes, which means there was not enough evidence to sustain the charge.

This led to the dismissal of the case.

The libel case filed by Binay, a former mayor of Makati, was based on a 2015 online news article that quoted a text message from Trillanes accusing him of conspiring with other unscrupulous individuals to malign his reputation and politically assassinate him, being then the consistent frontrunner in surveys on the 2016 presidential elections.

However, the Makati Regional Trial Court (RTC) held that the prosecution failed to present evidence to establish that Trillanes was the one who texted such statement to the media, noting that the media personality named as the author of the articles was not presented to substantiate Binay’s claim.

The CA, in its June 2023 decision, upheld the RTC ruling, saying that Binay’s contention that Trillanes made the libelous statements against him was based on “assumptions or conjectures.”

It noted that the alleged source of the online article was the text message that Trillanes sent to a reporter. However, Binay has no personal knowledge of what was actually written in the text message as he had no interaction with the reporter about this, it said.

And even if Binay had read the text message, he cannot testify on this as this would be hearsay, the appellate court added.

“Indeed, other than the online article, petitioner failed to submit convincing evidence to establish that what was written therein was the exact statement the private respondent actually texted to the reporters,” the CA said.

It added that it could not award damages to Binay because the prosecution failed to show evidence that it was Trillanes who made the alleged libelous statements.