Farmers’ group defends Montemayor vs libel raps

MANILA, Philippines — The Federation of Free Farmers (FFF) on Wednesday called for the dismissal of a cyberlibel complaint filed against its chair, former Agriculture Secretary Leonardo Montemayor, over his criticism of a company’s legal personality to import rice.

Montemayor surrendered on Monday to the Makati City Regional Trial Court, which issued a warrant for his arrest for cyberlibel and oral defamation based on complaints filed by Planters Products Inc. (PPI).

He posted a bail of P84,000.

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“We call for the dismissal of this cyberlibel suit, and for the protection of advocates who defend farmers. Let us debate policy, not silence farmers’ champions,” FFF, a nongovernmental organization of rural workers organized in 1953, said in a statement.

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On May 6, PPI lodged the complaints against Montemayor, the Magsasaka party list group and a certain Lejun dela Cruz for labeling the company as a government-owned or controlled corporation (GOCC) and questioning the legality of its rice imports in media interviews. They also alleged that as a GOCC, it was exempt from government audit.

‘Speaking the truth’

But PPI maintained that it is a private corporation engaged in legitimate rice importation.

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“PPI maintains that these defamatory claims regarding its corporate status and legitimate business activities were made with malice and have directly injured the reputation and goodwill the company has built over decades,” PPI’s legal counsel Carlwin Ong said then.

On March 18, Montemayor posted on his personal Facebook account a joint press release of FFF and Magsasaka raising concerns about the alleged procurement and sale of imported rice by Food Terminal Inc. (FTI) and PPI. They described FTI and PPI as GOCCs.

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Montemayor, who served as agriculture secretary from February 2001 to December 2002 during the Arroyo administration, is facing a separate cyberlibel complaint filed by FTI president and chief executive officer Joseph Rudolph Lo on July 15 with the Taguig City Prosecutors’ Office.

FFF said Montemayor is facing complaints for “championing farmers’ welfare and exposing the devastating effects of unregulated rice, pork, and other food imports that are decimating our local farmers.”

It said he was only exercising his constutional right to free speech, and that “to speak the truth about the plight of our farmers is not libel; it is a moral duty.”

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FFF said that documenting issues in the agricultural sector, such as the impact of import liberalization, competition against foreign-made goods, and agricultural smuggling, is not a crime, but rather a public service. —With a report from Inquirer Research