ONCE again, the Supreme Court has found an occasion to reiterate the time-honored principle that public office is a public trust and public officials are always accountable to the people.
This, in gist, was the milieu of a case recently decided by the High Court where the accused who uttered an alleged defamatory statement pertaining to the performance of an official duty of a barangay official, was acquitted.
Accordingly, strict personal discipline is expected of an occupant of a public office because a public official is a property of the public. He is looked upon to set the example of how public officials should correctly conduct themselves even in the face of extreme provocation.
The Court also said that statements uttered against public officers cannot be considered slanderous when these are related to the performance of their official duties, unless they are done maliciously.
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This was the advice of a lawyer-friend to a barangay official who wanted to file libel charges against a social media blogger who brutally lambasted the official who is reportedly maintaining an illicit relations with a single woman while still married to his wife.
Initially, the barangay official ignored the blog because he was advised to just ignore it and it will eventually stop altogether. But instead of stopping, the verbal attack became more brutal, this time it was accompanied by video footage of the barangay official, together with his mistress inside a coffee shop of a nearby town and during official time.
The video clearly showed the official having sweet time with his mistress inside the coffee shop and prevented the official from denying the allegations.
There was no denying anymore that he was the person on the video and the mistress was also clearly identified.
Apart from the political backlash, the official was also concerned that the scandal would escalate and would reach the eyes and ears of his rabidly-supportive sister.
Earlier, the sister confronted the barangay official about the philandering rumor, asking if it was true, and the official denied very strongly and maintained that it was just intriga.
No truth to that, he said.
To add stress to his denial, he even shed some crocodile tears during the confrontation with the sister and even invoked the saints in heaven.
Naturally, the sister accepted the explanation as gospel truth.
But with the video being circulated on social media, there was no more room to deny.
To put in plainly, the barangay official was literally caught with his pants down.
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Cornered now, the barangay official wanted to go on a legal offensive – by filing online libel charges against the blogger.
He was buoyed by the belief that the acts that were recorded in the video were private, and not official, in nature. He thought that being private, it should only be his wife and not anybody else, who can validly question his philandering ways. He is confident that his wife would not dare because they are basically on equal footing – as the wife is also maintaining her own love affair.
He also said that the blog about the birthday cake that he sent to the mistress where he labelled her dearly as “her princess” on the cake was malicious.
But the lawyer was not persuaded.
He told the barangay official that as a public official, he holds himself accountable to the people he serve and added that as a person clothed with authority, he must be prepared for public scrutiny and, potentially, criticisms inherent in the position.
But if you insist, of course you can do it but my friendly advice, the lawyer added, is that it will just be counter-productive because you have to prove the existence of malice. Hard to do so in this case, he added.
You have to bite the bullet, dawata na lang ang consequence kon pistahan kas imong gihimo kay wa may gasugo nimo nga buhaton ni, imong decision nga mosulod ka aning problemaha, the lawyer said.
Right now, the barangay official is just waiting, with bated breath, to be summoned by his sister. Once this happens, all bets are off and he can no longer expect the rabid support, financial, moral and all that, from his dear sister.
