Philippines court imprisons journalist for libel

Daily Tribune publisher Ninez Cacho–Olivares, a journalist with over 20 years experience, has been sentenced by the Makati regional trial court to a prison term of six months to two years and a fine of more than 5m Pesos (roughly USD100,000) for libel. Olivares had written a piece, in 2003, which alleged that then Ombudsman Simeon Marcelo chose people “connected” to a particular law firm to handle a complaint by its client Asia’s Emerging Dragons Corp. against the winning bidder in the build-operate contract for an airport terminal and former secretaries of the Department of transportation and communications.

The sanction is in clear defiance of a recent Supreme Court circular that all but removed imprisonment as a sanction for defamation (although it did not say it in so many words).

The case has been appealed.