Davao Region || XI Court junks RMN’s plea to defer libel proceedings
Court junks RMN’s plea to defer libel proceedings
Saturday, 04 February 2012 00:00
DAVAO City--The Regional Trial Court (RTC) here has junked the bid of two executives of Radio Mindanao Network (RMN) for a deferment of the proceedings and urged the court to re-evaluate the evidence against them. In a two-page order dated Jan. 3, Judge Ridgeway Tanjili of Regional Trial Court (RTC) Branch 12 junked the motion filed by RMN vice-president for AM operations Carlos Canoy, and then RMN Davao assistant manager Alejandro Gesta asking the court to determine if there was sufficient evidence to warrant their arrest for the case of libel filed by its former RMN Davao manager Mario Maximo "Dodong" Solis. Solis was earlier declared "illegally dismissed" by the National Labor Relations Commission (NLRC) Regional Arbitration Office XI after the RMN management terminated his services in 2009 for alleged "loss of trust and confidence".
The decision was later overturned by the NLRC in Cagayan de Oro City, the hometown of Canoy family but the verdict is pending appeal before the Court of Appeals. But aside from the termination, Canoy and Gesta allegedly caused the publication on a newspaper of a paid ad justifying Solis termination as well as caused the airing over DxDC of a 3-minute canned material translation of the newspaper advertisement. The radio material was aired once every hour for almost a month. Solis claimed that the paid ad and the radio material had maligned his reputation as the contents therein were untrue and baseless.
Tanjili has already ordered the arrest of Canoy and Gesta and already scheduled their arraignment but both accused twice asked for postponement and later filed a motion questioning the validity of the arrest warrant after they had posted bail for two counts of libel. In their petition for judicial determination of probable cause, Canoy and Gesta argued that there was no basis to warrant their arrest. But the prosecution through private prosecutor Atty. John Nathaniel Marasigan and government prosecutor Joseph Mamburam said that the court had already determined probable cause when it issued warrants for their arrest and this was sustained by Judge Tanjili.
"Anent the allegation of facts set forth in the instant motion, the court is not the view that all matters raised therein are evidentiary and therefore must be proved with evidence during a full blown trial on the merits of the case," Tanjili said. With this ruling, Tanjili set the arraignment and ordered Canoy and Gesta to appear in court on Feb. 10, 2012 at 8:30 a.m. PNA
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