This case has been cited 5 times or more.
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2016-01-26 |
CARPIO, J. |
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| To be liable for libel, the following elements must be shown to exist: (a) the allegation of a discreditable act or condition concerning another; (b) publication of the charge; (c) identity of the person defamed; and (d) existence of malice.[15] Malice connotes ill will or spite and speaks not in response to duty but merely to injure the reputation of the person defamed, and implies an intention to do ulterior and unjustifiable harm.[16] Malice is bad faith or bad motive and it is the essence of the crime of libel.[17] To determine actual malice, a libelous statement must be shown to have been written or published with the knowledge that it is false or in reckless disregard of whether it is false or not.[18] Reckless disregard of what is false or not means that the defendant entertains serious doubt as to the truth of the publication or possesses a high degree of awareness of its probable falsity.[19] | |||||
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2015-01-14 |
SERENO, C.J. |
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| Consequently, under Article 354, every defamatory imputation is presumed to be malicious, even if true, if no good intention and justifiable motive is shown. As an exception to the rule, the presumption of malice is done away with when the defamatory imputation qualifies as privileged communication.[22] In order to qualify as privileged communication under Article 354, Number 1,[23] the following requisites must concur: (1) the person who made the communication had a legal, moral, or social duty to make the communication, or at least, had an interest to protect, which interest may either be his own or of the one to whom it is made; (2) the communication is addressed to an officer or a board, or superior, having some interest or duty in the matter, and who has the power to furnish the protection sought; and (3) the statements in the communication are made in good faith and without malice.[24] | |||||
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2012-07-25 |
DEL CASTILLO, J. |
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| Before a statement would come within the ambit of a privileged communication under paragraph No, 1 of the abovequoted Article 354, it must be established that: "1) the person who made the communication had a legal, moral or social duty to make the communication, or at least, had an interest to protect, which interest may either be his own or of the one to whom it is made; 2) the communication is addressed to an officer or a board, or superior, having some interest or duty in the matter, and who has the power to furnish the protection sought: and 3) the statements in the communication are made in good faith and without malice."[25] All these requisites must concur. | |||||
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2010-10-06 |
LEONARDO-DE CASTRO, J. |
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| First, respondent filed the complaint to protect his good character, name, and reputation. Every man has a right to build, keep, and be favored with a good name. This right is protected by law with the recognition of slander and libel as actionable wrongs, whether as criminal offenses or tortuous conduct.[23] | |||||
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2008-03-28 |
NACHURA, J. |
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| of public interest, such criticism does not automatically fall within the ambit of constitutionally protected speech. If the utterances are false, malicious or unrelated to a public officer's performance of his duties or irrelevant to matters of public interest involving public figures, the same may give rise to criminal and civil liability.[36] While complainants are considered public figures for being personalities in the entertainment business, media people, including gossip and intrigue writers and commentators such as petitioner, do not have the unbridled license to malign their honor and dignity by indiscriminately airing fabricated and malicious comments, whether in broadcast media or in print, about their personal lives.[37] We must however take this opportunity to likewise remind media practitioners of the high ethical standards attached to and demanded by their noble profession. The danger of an unbridled irrational exercise of the right of free speech and press, that is, in utter contempt of the rights of others and in willful disregard of the cumbrous responsibilities inherent in it, is the eventual self-destruction of the right and the regression of human society into a veritable Hobbesian state of nature where life is short, nasty and brutish. Therefore, to recognize that there can be no absolute "unrestraint" in speech is to truly comprehend the quintessence of freedom in the marketplace of social thought and action, genuine freedom being that which is limned by the freedom of others. If there is freedom of the press, ought there not also be freedom from the press? It is in this sense that self-regulation as distinguished from self- censorship becomes the ideal mean for, as Mr. Justice Frankfurter has warned, "[W]ithout x x x a lively sense of responsibility, a free press may readily become a powerful instrument of injustice. Lest we be misconstrued, this is not to diminish nor constrict that space in which expression freely flourishes and operates. For we have always strongly maintained, as we do now, that freedom of expression is man's birthright - constitutionally protected and guaranteed, and | |||||