As the Vatican cited Sunday the importance of media on the occasion of the 44th World Communications Day, the Supreme Court (SC) ruled to proceed with the damage suit filed by a group of journalists against First Gentleman Jose Miguel Arroyo before a court in Makati City.

This, as the High Court junked the petition of Mr. Arroyo seeking to stop the Makati City Regional Trial Court (RTC) from proceeding with the trial of a P12.5-million damage suit.

It will be recalled that the case stemmed in response to the flurry of libel cases that President Arroyo’s husband filed since 2003 – 10 against 45 journalists, a number unprecedented in Philippine history.

Filed in December 2006 by more than 40 journalists from different media entities spanning television, radioand print, the damage suit claimed that Mr. Arroyo has abused his rights and violated the freedom of the press when he filed numerous libel cases against the complainants.

In a resolution, the High Court’s First Division affirmed the September 2008 and April 2009 rulings of the Court of Appeals (CA) finding no grave abuse of discretion on the part of the Makati City RTC in admitting the amended complaint filed in the case.

Makati Judge Zenaida Galapate Laguilles had previously denied Arroyo’s motion to dismiss the case due to the failure of complainants to pay the correct docket fees, and to immediately answer the written interrogatory within the prescribed extended period.

“Considering the allegations, issues and arguments adduced in the petition… the Court further resolves to deny the petition for failure of petitioner to sufficiently show that the CA committed any reversible error in the challenged decision as to warrant the exercise of this Court’s discretionary appellate jurisdiction,” the SC said in its resolution.

Concurring with the resolution were retiring Chief Justice Reynato Puno and Associate Justices Conchita Carpio Morales, Teresita Leonardo De Castro, Lucas Bersamin and Martin Villarama.
In its assailed rulings, the CA’s Ninth Division found that the delay in the case was “excusable by force of circumstances and that the filing of motions for extension by the journalists “clearly speaks of their due diligence to comply with the same.”

The CA noted that all the journalists are represented by only one law office and, thus, it is to be expected that their counsel would have difficulty in coordinating with each of them.

It also said that the request for additional time by the journalists would not be of material injury to Mr. Arroyo since there is no showing that they deliberately refused to comply with the modes set by the court.

The CA, however, granted the presidential spouse’s petition to hear his defense before the hearing at the Makati RTC after finding that Judge Laguilles “wantonly, whimsically and oppressively” issued two orders terminating the presentation of Mr. Arroyo’s defense and setting the case for pre-trial conference.

“Respondent judge should have considered the fact that the circumstances which prevented petitioner (Mr. Arroyo) from presenting further evidence on his affirmative defenses were not attributable to him alone,” it said.

Based on the hearing of the RTC, only four instances that the resetting of the hearing had been made upon the initiative of Mr. Arroyo and these, according to the CA, were valid and without intention to delay the proceedings.

Among these instances were when the First Gentleman underwent a surgery for cardiac-aneurism in 2007, causing the resetting of two hearings and when he moved for another postponement as he was still not physically fit to stand trial.

It was not the first time that Mr. Arroyo moved for the dismissal of the class suit. In 2008, he sought the quashal of the complaint filed by the journalists due to their alleged failure to pay the correct docket  fees.

But this has also been dismissed by the appellate court, which ruled that the journalists showed no bad faith when they paid the fees based on the assessment made by the clerk of court. Neither did the journalists have any intent of evading payment of the correct fees, it added.

It also ruled that the nonpayment of the proper docket fees does not automatically mean the dismissal of the case as long as the fee is paid within the prescriptive period.