A court in Antipolo City recently junked the almost twoyear old libel case filed by Dr. Vicki Belo against lawyer Argee Guevarra. Recall that Guevarra posted critical comments against the Belo Medical Group Inc. (BMGI) and its medical director Belo on his own Facebook page in September 2009. In a previous report, Guevarra was said to have referred to Belo as “Reyna ng Kaplastikan, Reyna ng Kapalpakan” (Queen of False Pretenses, Queen of Incompetence) and have also called for a boycott on all Belo clinics. But after BMGI filed the lawsuit, an unfazed Guevarra said he “welcomed” the complaint and even posted on his Facebook account: “A wannabe mortician masquerading as a cosmetic surgeon will never be able to stitch up the difference between formalin or botox, between free speech or slander when suing for libel a Facebook user for his shout outs and status updates...”

Apparently, the lawyer was driven to do the campaign against Belo after his former client, a certain Josie Norcio, purportedly suffered from complications after a botched buttock enhancement surgery done by a BMGI doctor, who allegedly used the banned substance “Hydrogel.”

In a report on abs-cbnnews.com on July 26, Judge Mary Josephine Lazaro of the Antipolo Regional Trial Court deemed in its decision that Internet libel cannot proceed to an actual trial because of “jurisdictional constraints.” Guevarra in a statement issued on Tuesday said that the judge based her decision “on improper venue.” He also cited the Justice Department’s ruling that states the non-existence of such crime as Internet libel, thus preventing prosecutors “from even entertaining such complaints.”

The defendant further alleged that “Dra. Belo shopped for a friendly fiscal that’s why she filed the libel case in the province of Rizal despite the fact that she resides in Makati and I live in Pasig City.” Luke Espiritu and Resty Mendoza, Guevarra’s legal counsel, also accused Belo of financing “misleading, if not false, advertisements.” They also slammed the celebrity cosmetic surgeon for acting as if she is “Chief Censor of Cyberspace.”

In reaction to the court decision, the two were quoted as saying in the same report that it

is “a small step forward in making Facebook one of the freest forums for the nearly 20 million

Filipino Facebook users to exercise their right to free speech and expression.” Meanwhile, Belo’s camp has yet to issue its statement as of this writing on the fate of the lawsuit, which was said to be not only the Philippines’ first ever Facebook libel case but also the first case in the world

where the complainant did not belong in the defendant’s “Friends” list.