WHY SOTTO WILL PROBABLY LOSE IN YAP DEFAMATION CASE

According to recent news, Vic Sotto sued Darryl Yap for defamation via online means under the Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012.

As reported by Iza Iglesias  and Francis Earl Cueto of the Manila Times, Sotto filed 19 counts of cyber-libel against Yap, the filmmaker of the upcoming controversial movie called "The R*pe of Pepsi Paloma." In a trailer of this movie posted online, a female character asked another acting as Pepsi Paloma whether the latter was r*ped by Sotto, to which the latter replied in the affirmative.

News archives show that Paloma, when she was still alive, indeed filed a r*pe case against Sotto. However, she later withdrew the same.

In the case of AYER PRODUCTIONS v. CAPULONG and ENRILE (G.R. No. 82380, April 29, 1988), the Supreme Court said, citing Prof. Prosser and Prof. Keeton, that public figures are held to have lost, to some extent at least, their right to privacy. This is because of the fact that they have sought publicity and consented to it and so cannot complaint when they received it; that their personalities and their affairs are public and can no longer be regarded as their own private business; and, that the press has a privilege, under the Constitution, to inform the public about those who have become legitimate matters of public interest. On one or another of these grounds, and sometimes all, it has been held that there was no liability when they were given additional publicity, as to matters legitimately within the scope of the public interest they had aroused.

Note that old news reports indeed verify that a r*pe case was filed by Paloma against Sotto. These being the basis of the controversial movie, its creators cannot be said to have engaged in a reckless disregard of the truth, especially if the family member of Paloma were consulted regarding its creation. This is further supported by the fact that Sotto is a public figure and that the withdrawal of the r*pe charge had sparked various reactions from the public at its time. These news reports and the criminal charges filed by Paloma are not personal facts but are matters of public record.

In the AYER PRODUCTIONS case, a proposed motion picture entitled "The Four Day Revolution" was endorsed by the Movie Television Review and Classification Board as well as the other government agencies consulted. General Fidel Ramos also signified his approval of the intended film production. Juan Ponce Enrile opposed it and wrote his vehement objection to the same.

Despite Enrile's objections, the production company proceeded to film the proposed motion picture, prompting Enrile to file a case against the former, seeking injunction.

In resolving the case in favor of the production company and against Enrile, the Supreme Court held that the line of equilibrium in the specific context of the case between the constitutional freedom of speech and of expression and the right of privacy may be marked out in terms of a requirement that the proposed motion picture must be fairly truthful and historical in its presentation of events. There must, in other words, be no knowing or reckless disregard of truth in depicting the participation of private respondent in the EDSA Revolution. There must further be no presentation of the private life of the unwilling private respondent and certainly no revelation of intimate or embarrassing personal facts.

The question now for the court in which the Sotto cases are pending is whether Yap's controversial movie is "fairly truthful" and "historical" enough to constitute as an exercise of free expression.