{"id":6406,"date":"2022-05-05T13:41:14","date_gmt":"2022-05-05T13:41:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/?p=6406"},"modified":"2022-05-05T13:41:14","modified_gmt":"2022-05-05T13:41:14","slug":"walden-bello-counters-cyberlibel-complaint","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/walden-bello-counters-cyberlibel-complaint\/","title":{"rendered":"Walden Bello counters cyberlibel complaint"},"content":{"rendered":"

On April 20, 2022, vice Presidential candidate Walden Bello handed in his counter affidavit<\/a> regarding a cyberlibel complaint filed against him at the Davao City Prosecutor’s Office. The complaint was filed by former City Information Office head Jefry Tupas. Tupas attended a beach party in November 2021 where a drug raid was conducted. In a Facebook post, Bello allegedly portrayed her as a “drug addict and drug dealer.” Bello denies these allegations, saying the claim has “hardly any basis in truth and fact” and is politically motivated.<\/p>\n

After Bello publicly stated that the Davao City government was corrupt and that the city was a hub for illegal drugs, he was declared “persona non grata” in Davao City<\/a> by the city council on March 22, 2022. The regional party of Davao’s City Mayor and vice-presidential candidate Sara Duterte, Hugpong ng Pagbabago (HNP), labeled Bello as a “narco-politician”. He allegedly withheld information in the fight against illegal drugs, which is why the HNP ordered an investigation into Bello’s suspected knowledge of drug trafficking in the city.<\/p>\n

International human rights organizations have been demanding the decriminalization of libel<\/a> for a long time. In the Philippines, such lawsuits are frequently used to intimidate members of the opposition and in particular journalists. Following a resolution issued by the Prosecutor\u2019s Office of General Santos on March 31, 2022 (published on April 11), 21 out of a total of 50 cases<\/a> of cyberlibel against the online news agency Rappler were dismissed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On April 20, 2022, vice Presidential candidate Walden Bello handed in his counter affidavit regarding a cyberlibel complaint filed against him at the Davao City Prosecutor’s Office. The complaint was filed by former City Information Office head Jefry Tupas. Tupas attended a beach party in November 2021 where a drug raid was conducted. In a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[61,58],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6406","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-freedom-of-press","category-human-rights-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6406","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6406"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6406\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6437,"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6406\/revisions\/6437"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6406"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6406"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6406"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}