This case has been cited 1 times or more.
|
2009-04-24 |
NACHURA, J. |
||||
| As we have constantly held in Jalandoni, Bocobo, People v. Metropolitan Trial Court of Quezon City, Br. 32,[41] Manzano, and analogous cases, we must, in the same way, declare herein that the law, as it still stands at present, dictates that criminal and civil actions for damages in cases of written defamations shall be filed simultaneously or separately with the RTC to the exclusion of all other courts. A subsequent enactment of a law defining the jurisdiction of other courts cannot simply override, in the absence of an express repeal or modification, the specific provision in the RPC vesting in the RTC, as aforesaid, jurisdiction over defamations in writing or by similar means.[42] The grant to the Sandiganbayan[43] of jurisdiction over offenses committed in relation to (public) office, similar to the expansion of the jurisdiction of the MTCs, did not divest the RTC of its exclusive and original jurisdiction to try written defamation cases regardless of whether the offense is committed in relation to office. The broad and general phraseology of Section 4, Presidential Decree No. 1606, as amended by Republic Act No. 8249,[44] cannot be construed to have impliedly repealed, or even simply modified, such exclusive and original jurisdiction of the RTC.[45] | |||||