The Office of the Provincial Prosecutor (OPP) has found “prima facie case” to charge Rowena Burden for five (5) more counts of cyber libel in relation to her series of Facebook tirades directed against Cebu Gov. Gwen Garcia.
OPP recommends bail at P48,000 for each of the five counts of the criminal cases against the respondent.
The charges stemmed from seven cyber libel complaints filed by the National Bureau of Investigation Central Visayas Regional Office (NBI CEVRO), which the OPP consolidated into five charges, using the other two as support evidence to bolster the other five cases.
According to the nine-page resolution penned by Assistant Provincial Prosecutor Marlon C. Atillo and approved by Provincial Prosecutor Ludivico Vistal Cutaran, Burden’s posts “hurl malicious, false, denigrating, and defamatory imputations cruelly and deliberately designed to malign the person, character, and honor” of Gov. Garcia.
In her Facebook posts which the NBI CEVRO submitted as evidence, Burden called out the governor for being a liar together with her daughter, DOT Sec. Christina Garcia-Frasco, and sibling third district Congressman Pablo John Garcia; accused the governor of corruption in using public money to fund trips abroad and the acquisition of properties; as well as spun titillating tales of the governor’s sexual dalliances; among others.
“The incontrovertible evidence of defamatory character are the very statements which is the subject matter of these complaints where Respondent (Burden) publicly called the Private Complainant (Gov. Gwen) of being a liar, a bully, a corrupt person, by implying the use of public funds for her personal gain, for soliciting sex, an immoral person for being a narcissist,” the resolution read.
The five (5) more cases are added on top of the previous three (3) charges of cyber libel filed against Burden last month for similarly-toned malicious statements against the governor.
According to Section 4(c)4 of the “Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012” cyber libel is libel, as defined in Article 355 of the Revised Penal Code (RPC), committed through a computer system or any other similar means.
Moreover, Art. 353 of the RPC states that “libel is public and malicious imputation of a crime, or of a vice or defect, real or imaginary, or any act, omission, condition, status, or circumstance tending to cause the dishonor, discredit, or contempt of a natural or juridical person, or to blacken the memory of one who is dead.” | Sugbo News