P1 T fake bill yields libel vs. lawyer, Post

For publishing the story of a lawyer whose P1,000 was refused by a bank teller because it was found to be fake, the Post publisher is now a recipient of yet another libel case. But the Post publisher is not alone in his latest brush with legal trouble. The lawyer, J. Albert Tinampay was also named respondent in a case for libel filed before the city prosecutor's office last week. The libel complaint against the Post publisher came at a time when about four months ago, he became a free man after a libel case which reached up to the Supreme Court, found him innocent of the crime. It took all of 15 years before the case was finally decided and the Post publisher escaped from the libel complaint by the skin of his teeth after he was convicted first in the Regional trial Court and affirmed by the Court of Appeals.

The latest libel charge against Tinampay and the Post publisher stemmed from the publication of the news story “Lawyer sues bank teller for fake P1 T” filed by one April Yap, an employee of Security Bank. In her complaint, Yap claimed that the crime of libel was committed and perpetrated against her by Tinampay and it was ill-motivated and engendered, planned, deliberate and malicious. The libel case was an offshoot to the dismissal of an earlier case filed by Tinampay against Yap and the Security Bank Corp. In a three-page resolution, City Prosecutor Alberto Santos Rara dismissed the case for violation of Article 168 of the Revised Penal Code or illegal possession and use of false treasury or bank notes and other instrument of credit.

In dismissing the case, Prosecutor Rara ruled that even granting for the sake of argument that the P1,000 bill subject of this case was in fact fake, it is still his considered opinion that there exists no sufficient prima facie evidence to charge respondent Yap for the crime imputed against her. As to the charge against Security Bank, the investigating prosecutor noted that the said entity is a juridical one and therefore cannot be made an accused in a criminal case. He cited the case of West Coast life Insurance vs Hurd, 27 Phil. 401, where it was held that no criminal action lies against a juridical person because such a person is not subject to arrest or physical punishment.

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