(CMFR/IFEX) – A local journalist was recently sued for libel by a congressman in Pampanga, 80 kilometers north of Manila. Dante Fabian, a “Sun.Star” Pampanga reporter, was sued by Pampanga Rep. Francis Nepomuceno over three stories on an alleged Php19-million (approx. US$368,900) water pipes scam in Pampanga’s first district, which the official represents. In his […]
(CMFR/IFEX) – A local journalist was recently sued for libel by a congressman in Pampanga, 80 kilometers north of Manila.
Dante Fabian, a “Sun.Star” Pampanga reporter, was sued by Pampanga Rep. Francis Nepomuceno over three stories on an alleged Php19-million (approx. US$368,900) water pipes scam in Pampanga’s first district, which the official represents.
In his complaint filed 3 August 2006, Nepomuceno called the stories a form of “malicious reporting.”
Narciso Sula, the newspaper’s general manager, said Fabian was “singled out”, while one of the sources of the stories, Angeles City Mayor Carmelo Lazatin, Nepomuceno’s longtime political rival, was spared from litigation.
Members of the Pampanga Press Club condemned Nepomuceno’s filing of a libel suit as an apparent attempt to harass a member of the press.
Nepomuceno denied using the libel suit to harass Fabian.
“If I had wanted to harass him I would not have resorted to this legal process,” he told the Manila-based Philippine Daily Inquirer on Wednesday. “All I want from [Fabian] is fair reporting.”
He said Lazatin and the others liable for the “defamatory” stories would be given their day in court. The paper was not cited as a respondent.
Fabian said he had always gone out of his way to seek Nepomuceno’s comments on the allegations, but that Nepomuceno never responded to his requests.
Fabian said his reports were based on the official letters of local village leaders who claimed they did not receive water pipes distributed in 2005 by the Department of Public Works and Highways and funded by Nepomuceno’s priority development assistance fund (PDAF), more commonly known as the “pork barrel fund.”
In his complaint, Nepomuceno said at least five investigation reports from the Office of the Ombudsman for Luzon, Public Works Secretary Hermogenes Ebdane Jr. and the Commission on Audit’s regional office “confirmed my innocence and that the alleged anomaly that they were trying to impute unto me was proved baseless.”
Fabian said there was reason to pursue the story because village leaders continued to report the non-delivery of the water pipes.
Lazatin said he had exposed the supposed anomaly in light of President Macapagal-Arroyo’s campaign against graft.
“[Fabian] should not have been sued. Nobody should be sued because there is documentary evidence [which show] that something went wrong,” Lazatin said.
Lazatin said it was not Nepomuceno but the officials’ employees who should be compelled to account for the “missing pipes”, reported the Inquirer News Service.
