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Surviving a Libel Case

While of you may have already heard about the libel case against me was dismissed last month, I wasn’t able to properly announce it here in my blog. We were waiting for a possible motion for reconsideration to elapse before bringing it out into the public. Here’s a short summary of the entire event:

Back in August 2006, we got a demand letter from a law firm. This firm represents a certain Joel Aquino (JEA) who runs a company called WebCom. Apparently, one of our web hosting resellers has a client that runs the forum greedyolddumbass.com. In that forum, several ex-employees of WebCom were making libelous comments against JEA and his family. They wanted us as the webhost to prevent and desist the posting of such comments in the forum.

Within a week, I sent out a reply to their firm that we are only a web hosting company and have no knowledge of this issue. Besides, the website/forum have already moved out of our servers and we no longer have any control of it in any manner as the hosting provider. Thinking that it was all that and the issue has been clear, we forgot about it.

September came and we got a subpoena from the Pasig RTC identifying my company and members of the forum for alleged libel. I think we got close to half a dozen subpoenas in the span of 4 or 5 weeks. When we submitted our counter-affidavit, I also filed a perjury case against the complainant for misrepresenting us as administrators or operators of the forum when it was clear in our earlier communication that we are just the hosting provider. All three cases were then consolidated (2 libel cases and 1 for perjury).

Then, came months and month of clarifications, appearances at the fiscal’s office and a lot of waiting.

Now that it’s all over and the case against me was dismissed (they found probable cause to charge the other two respondents of libel), I can only take a good deep breath and put this behind me. I’d like to thank all those who helped me thru this — the guys at BlogHerald esp. to J Angelo who set up a legal fund, the people at NUJP for offering help, other lawyers who heard of my case and sent in their offer of support, my readers and fellow bloggers. My thanks goes to fellow blogger Atty. Fred Pamaos and his partners at the JLP Law Offices for getting me thru this. Hat tip to all the journalists who gave moral support and “welcomed me to the club“.

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Avatar for Abe Olandres

Abe is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of YugaTech with over 20 years of experience in the technology industry. He is one of the pioneers of blogging in the country and considered by many as the Father of Tech Blogging in the Philippines. He is also a technology consultant, a tech columnist with several national publications, resource speaker and mentor/advisor to several start-up companies.

67 Responses

  1. Avatar for Rey Balbiran Rey Balbiran says:

    my i know the details of aquino vs rp nuclei case? which branch in pasig city it was assigned?

  2. Avatar for KLINTGEM KLINTGEM says:

    I never know that there’s some bloggers who faced this kind of libel case and I stumbled on this blog while searching it. I must be careful.

  3. Avatar for Francesco Francesco says:

    Which makes him nothing mroe than a village idiot gravelling at the feet of America’s enemies. Undeterred by his constant jailing, Xiaobo took his political ideas to the Internet, which he called “God’s gift to China”. Relationships amongst people are difficult but they are oh, so valuable and rewarding.

  4. Avatar for Jeffery Jeffery says:

    The video below gives more information about how the slime
    mold U. The first case in point is the Israeli-Palestinian problem.
    s definition to include climate activism, human rights, and micro-financing.

  5. Avatar for Pinoy Android News Pinoy Android News says:

    Congrats!!! you made it through….

  6. Avatar for garz garz says:

    Congrats for getting through it! :D

  7. Avatar for Liz Liz says:

    I googled about libel and this came up. I am just really curious about filing of libels against bloggers. You might shed some light on my blog because I am facing such situation. Thanks and see you there!

  8. Avatar for frix frix says:

    matagal na tapos ang kaso na to! Na curious lang talaga ako. Meron pala ito sa blogging world?

  9. Avatar for jerky jerky says:

    Stratvisions is still alive and still suing joel disini. What an evil and greedy owner of a crap company

  10. Avatar for candy candy says:

    hi there… this is one of the hell true about this company. they have many company names. The post in the inquirer its true daw. They even make illegal actiities daw true internet cc daw. I dont know if its true.

  11. Avatar for junkshop junkshop says:

    Huwat? nasa news nanaman.. sikat ang pinoy! lolz! pero mukhang kakaiba na this time, its NBI versus them!

  12. Avatar for JEA JEA says:

    Joel Aquino is in the news again!

    http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/breakingnews/infotech/view_article.php?article_id=97990

  13. Avatar for Kitkat Kitkat says:

    Kasi mainit ang company s mga authorities. Medyo related kasi work nila s porn. Tpos balita ko marami tlgang kaaway yan lalo na mga dating employees nila, dinidemanda yata lahat ng umalis sa kanila at pinapabayad ng 25k.

  14. Avatar for pandar bear pandar bear says:

    oo nga yata, nagbago nanaman ng company name.. d ko tlga megets kung bakit nagpapalit palit sya ng name! lolz!

  15. Avatar for geoff geoff says:

    nagbago na yata ulit sya ng company name, strat visions na! lolz..

  16. Avatar for geoff geoff says:

    nagbago na yata ulit sya ng company name, strat visions na! lolz

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