Court convicts security agency exec for libel
The defense of "response to duty" in justifying the publication of an open letter containing libelous statements was struck down by the court and convicted the chairman of the board of a security agency of libel.
Presiding Judge Gloria M. Madero of the Regional Trial Court, Branch 29, Iloilo City convicted retired police general Guillermo Enriquez of libel. He is the current chairman of the board of Mansor Security and General Services, Inc., a security agency based in Iloilo City with branches in Manila and Bacolod. The case stemmed from an open letter Enriquez distributed in 1972 to stockholders, officers, and employees of Mansor as well as disinterested third parties, including a clerk of court of another sala.
In the said open letter, Enriquez maligned former Mansor chairman Mariano M. Ganzon by calling him a traitor, deriding him as "Judas Escariot 169 times," an ingrate, the laughing stock in Mansor, a highway robber, etc. Enriquez justified his statements against Ganzon in the exercise of his duty and function as chairman of the board "to enlighten and clarify to the stockholders the issues in the corporation, perforce, his good intention and justifiable motive cancel out any malice."
Citing a recent case of People vs. Sugutan (G.R. No. 25167, Feb. 22, 2005), the court disagrees with the defense of accused because "the letter contained libelous words which cast aspersions on the character, integrity and reputation of the private complainant. They are, therefore, derogatory and malicious."
In consideration of the age of accused which is 75, the court exercised compassion and human consideration in meting the penalty for accused and opted to impose only the fine of penalty as allowed under Art. 355 of the Revised Penal Code. Accused was ordered to pay a fine of P6,000.00 with subsidiary liability of imprisonment in case of insolvency. Enriquez was ordered to pay Ganzon moral damages in the sum of P100,000 and P37,694 in actual damages.
The libel case of Enriquez is among the chain of court litigations between the divided groups of Mansor stockholders allied to either Enriquez or Ganzon after the latter acquired by sale in 2000 the whole of the shares of stocks of the late Manuel Soriano, founder of Mansor.