Nalzaro’s arraignment in Tomas’ case today

The arraignment of tri-media personality Pablito “Bobby” Nalzaro in the libel case former Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña filed against him will push through today.

Nalzaro was supposed to be arraigned about a month ago but the court granted his request to suspend the same for 60 days while his petition for review is pending before the Department of Justice.

The court, however, started the 60-day count from the day Nalzaro filed his DOJ petition on June 4, 2015. Aside from the arraignment, the court is also set to tackle two of Nalzaro’s motions – the motion to quash information and the motion to suspend proceeding.

Osmeña sued Nalzaro for allegedly maligning him in the latter’s column in a local daily.

He alleged that Nalzaro degraded his reputation when the latter alleged in his column that he filed fabricated cases against Diwa Cuevas, the officer-in-charge (OIC) Cebu City treasurer.

“Tomas is moving to sabotage Mike’s administration. Unfortunately, because of his obsession to get back at Mike, many innocent people got caught in the political crossfire. An example is OIC city treasurer Diwa Cuevas. Tomas filed several administrative cases against her. Some of those cases were based on fabricated charges,” Nalzaro’s column reads.

Osmeña said the article “unjustly imputes” that he fabricated charges against Cuevas, claiming that the administrative charges he filed against Cuevas were based on the 2012 and 2013 audit reports of the Commission on Audit. Prosecutor Jesus Rodrigo Taga-an found enough basis in Osmeña’s complaint to elevate the case against Nalzaro to court.

Nalzaro denied the accusations against him, saying that Taga-an erred in indicting him since there was no malice in the use of word “fabricated” in his column.

Nalzaro said he cannot be held liable for libel because his column constitutes “fair comment on public officials and public figures,” hence falling within the concept of privilege communication.

Nalzaro then filed a motion for reconsideration but Taga-an denied his arguments and upheld his earlier resolution.

It was on June 29 when Nalzaro’s case was re-raffled off to Labra’s sala after Judge Ricky Jones Macabaya of RTC Branch 5 voluntarily inhibited from handling the case to avoid suspicion of bias.

Macabaya used to prosecute the libel case filed by Osmeña against businessman Jonathan Guardo while he was connected at the Cebu City Prosecutor’s Office. —