CA found Maria Ressa guilty of cyber libel
The Court of Appeals (CA) released a decision on cyber libel case against Rappler CEO Maria Ressa and news site’s former researcher and writer Reynaldo Santos.
To recall, businessman Wilfredo Keng filed the said case against Ressa and Santos following Rappler’s article alleging his connection with former Chief Justice Renato Corona.
The Manila Regional Trial Court Branch 46 found Ressa and Santos guilty of cyber libel. Judge Rainelda Estacio-Montesa sentenced them to a prison term ranging from six months and a day to six years, based on the report from The Philippine Star.
In Maria Ressa and Reynaldo Santos’s appeal, they pointed out that the issue of republication of the May 2012 article was published before the enactment of the Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012. In February 2014, the said article was updated to correct a typographical error.
The correction of “evation” to “evasion” was a form of republication, the prosecutors said, and this was the legal theory that Montesa agreed with.
The judge also ruled that the charge against the Rappler CEO and the news site’s former staff has not prescribed, which means it could no longer be brought to court as the time for it to be brought before the judiciary has already expired. It is because the provision of the law on prescriptions for violations penalized by special acts applied since the anti-cybercrime law did not provide for a prescriptive period, the report said.
Although the Court of Appeals has denied the appeal of Maria Ressa and Reynaldo Santos, they can still question this decision before the Supreme Court.
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