A MAKATI court yesterday found former senator Antonio Trillanes IV guilty of libel for his 2015 allegations linking ex-Makati mayor Jejomar Erwin “Junjun” Binay to a supposed “justice for sale” scheme to stop his suspension at the time.
Judge Andres Soriano of Makati Regional Trial Court Branch 148 ruled the prosecution submitted sufficient evidence to establish the elements of libel in Trillanes’ statements to the media accusing Binay of bribery, graft and corruption, among others.
“The Court holds that the prosecution established all the elements of libel herein against the accused as defined under Article 353 in relation to Article 355 of the Revised Penal Code,” Soriano said.
Soriano ordered Trillanes to pay Binay the amount of P500,000 in moral damages, as well as the legal costs incurred during the trial period. The judge likewise ordered the former senator to pay P100,000 in fine.
In deciding Trillanes’ penalties, the Makati court adhered to a Supreme Court circular preferring the imposition of fines rather than imprisonment in libel cases.
Article 355 of the Revised Penal Code penalizes libel with prision correcional (ten years, four months and one day) in its minimum and medium periods, or a fine ranging from P40,000 to P1.2 million, or both, in addition to the civil action which may be brought by the offended party.
Trillanes, in a brief statement, said the verdict “is the price to pay for standing up against very powerful people.”
Trillanes said his defense lawyers would “exhaust all legal remedies to overturn this ruling.
Regardless, we will not let this legal setback discourage us in pursuing our advocacy to purge our government of corrupt and abusive public officials.”
In his ruling, Soriano said Trillanes should have first verified his information and filed the appropriate Senate resolution seeking an inquiry into his allegations before he went to the media to accuse Binay of impropriety.
“Making and releasing the subject statements absent a serious verification and investigation is recklessness bordering on a disregard of what is true or false,” Soriano said.
Soriano noted that Trillanes only filed a resolution calling for a Senate probe into the alleged justice for sale issue on April 13, 2015, or several days after he made the assailed statements to the media.
Likewise, Soriano said Trillanes cannot cite the resolution of the Senate Blue Ribbon committee recommending the filing of corruption charges against the Binays for their alleged involvement in anomalous contracts in the city as his vindication in the libel case since the complaint was different and distinct from the recommendation of the Senate panel.
In April 2015, Trillanes accused then Court of Appeals Justices Jose Reyes Jr. and Francisco Acosta of supposedly receiving P25 million each allegedly in exchange for stopping the suspension of Binay as mayor of Makati.
Binay’s suspension was in relation to the allegedly anomalous construction of the Makati City Hall Parking Building 2. The suspension did not push through after the CA 6th Division through Justices Reyes, Acosta and Eduardo Peralta Jr. issued a temporary restraining order stopping its enforcement.
Soriano was the same judge who junked the Duterte administration’s efforts to revive the coup d’ etat case against Trillanes for his participation in the 2003 Oakwood munity when he was still a junior Navy officer.
