By Atty Arnedo S. Valera
The letter of Mr. Ronald Jay D. Lacson, chief of staff of Sen. Panfilo Lacson, characterizing Rigoberto Tiglao’s column, “Lacson defense of Marcos Jr. so stupid, so sickening,” as “malicious, false and highly actionable,” deserves a measured but firm response.
What is at stake here is not merely the reputation of one senator or the sharpness of one columnist’s pen. What is at stake is the breathing space of our constitutional democracy: the scope of fair comment on public officials and the freedom of a newspaper like The Manila Times to publish robust, even caustic, criticism of those who choose to speak in defense of power.
The proper frame: Public debate on a matter of grave public concern
Tiglao’s column did not arise in a vacuum. It intervened in a national debate over alleged large-scale corruption, the use of public office for private gain, and the political strategy of deflecting accountability away from the sitting president and his inner circle.
Senator Lacson did not speak as a private citizen dragged unwillingly into controversy. He voluntarily entered the arena as: a longtime public figure; a former police general with a long record of engagement in anticorruption discourse; a prominent defender of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. on a controversy that goes to the heart of public trust.
When a veteran statesman publicly deploys his prestige to shield a sitting president from accusations linked to massive public funds, he must reasonably expect that columnists, citizens and political opponents will question not only his arguments but also his judgment and motivations. That is the essence of political accountability in a democratic society.
To call such questioning “malicious” simply because it is painful, sarcastic, or unforgiving is to ask for a privilege no democrat should seek: the power to speak freely in defense of the powerful without having to endure an equally free, even biting, rejoinder.
Fair comment and constitutional protection for sharp criticism
Philippine jurisprudence is crystal clear that fair comment on matters of public interest is a qualifiedly privileged communication.
In Borjal v. Court of Appeals (GR 126466, Jan. 14, 1999), the Supreme Court held that fair commentaries on matters of public interest are privileged, and that criticism of public figures in their public capacity “is not necessarily actionable” unless it constitutes a false allegation of fact or a comment based on a false factual supposition.
In Vasquez v. Court of Appeals (GR 118971, Sept. 15, 1999), the court went even further, stressing that citizens who denounce misconduct of public officials perform a civic duty, and may not be punished for libel in the absence of proof that their statements were false and made with actual malice.
Transposed to the present controversy:
– Tiglao wrote about alleged large-scale corruption and political cover-ups involving the highest officials of the land — unquestionably a matter of public interest.
– Senator Lacson, a public figure of the first order, was acting precisely in his public capacity when he issued his defense of President Marcos.
– Tiglao’s column is, in its core, a commentary on the plausibility, coherence and possible ulterior motives of Lacson’s public defense.
The fact that Tiglao chose to describe Lacson’s defense as “so stupid, so sickening, grossly ignorant, shameless service to Marcos as PR man” does not convert his column into criminal libel. These are value judgments, rhetorical characterizations of a public argument, not verifiable statements of fact. In the language of comparative constitutional law, this is the realm of “opinion, hyperbole and political invective,” which cannot be proved true or false in a courtroom.
Courts in many democracies, including the United States in Hustler Magazine v. Falwell, have repeatedly warned that political discourse would be impoverished if satire, ridicule and even “outrageous” commentary about public figures could be suppressed on the ground of emotional distress.
On alleged ‘imputation of bribery and witness subornation’
The Lacson camp’s letter focuses on what it reads as an “explicit suggestion” that Senator Lacson may have convinced a witness to shift blame away from President Marcos Jr. “for a price.” This is presented as a “clear imputation of grave criminal acts.”
Here, a few distinctions are crucial:
– Inference versus assertion. A columnist is entitled to draw inferences — even harsh, unflattering inferences — from publicly known facts, political patterns and the inherent logic of events. Political commentary routinely asks: Who benefits? Who is being protected? Who is thrown under the bus? To transform every such inference into “imputation of a specific crime” is to suffocate investigative and opinion journalism.
– Context of systemic corruption. The column must be read against the backdrop of widespread public suspicion about flood-control budgets, infrastructure allocations and political horsetrading, much of which has been fueled by official investigations, whistleblowers and media exposés, not by Tiglao alone. The column’s rhetorical question about whether a witness could have been induced “for a price” is part of an attempt to map the incentives and power dynamics within that contested terrain.
– Threshold of actionable defamation. Even assuming the most aggressive reading of the text, the law still requires: a clearly false factual allegation; published with actual malice (knowledge of falsity or reckless disregard for truth); and not sheltered by the mantle of fair comment on a matter of undeniable public concern.
Tiglao’s column is plainly — sometimes brutally — argumentative. It does not purport to be a sworn affidavit. It reads as a challenge: If Lacson’s narrative is to be believed, we must confront the possibility that X, Y or Z is happening behind the scenes. That is a far cry from a reporter asserting as a matter of fact that Senator Lacson committed bribery on a given date, in a specific place, to a named witness.
The legal standard is not whether Senator Lacson is deeply offended, or whether his office strongly denies the implications. The test is whether, viewed in its full context, the column crosses the line from protected commentary into a knowingly false statement of fact made with actual malice. On that test, Tiglao’s piece remains squarely within the arena of protected political speech.
Tone, insult and the duties of thick-skinned leadership
The Lacson letter is particularly aggrieved by adjectives: “so stupid, so sickening, grossly ignorant, shameless service to Marcos as PR man.” It argues that these are not “mere commentary” but “deliberate and malicious efforts to subject Senator Lacson to public ridicule and contempt.”
But ridicule and contempt are unavoidable byproducts of public debate. Opinion pages across the democratic world teem with columns calling leaders “clueless,” “cowardly,” “morally bankrupt,” “corrupt,” or worse. The reason such language has been tolerated — indeed, historically treasured — is simple: a citizenry that cannot insult the powerful cannot fully hold them to account.
Our own Supreme Court has emphasized that officials are expected to endure more, not less, criticism than private individuals. In Vasquez, it underscored that robust language in denouncing public misconduct is protected so long as it is not divorced from a good-faith attempt to expose abuse of power.
In that light, Tiglao’s harsh descriptors may be distasteful to some, but they perform a democratic function: They signal moral outrage at what he perceives as a dangerous attempt to cleanse a sitting president of serious allegations via a politically convenient narrative. If Senator Lacson believes the criticism to be unfair, the proper remedy is counter-speech — as he has now exercised through his chief of staff’s letter — not the threat of litigation or demand for sanctions.
The chilling effect of demanding ‘corrective action’
Perhaps the most troubling aspect of the Lacson letter is not its disagreement with Tiglao’s conclusions — disagreement is welcome — but its call on the paper’s management to “take corrective actions to uphold the standards of professionalism and accountability.” In the context of Philippine press history, that phrase is ominous.
We have lived through eras when “corrective action” meant: pulling a columnist from a sensitive beat; “reassigning” a critical writer; forcing public apologies under pressure; or quietly dropping voices that made the powerful uncomfortable.
If The Manila Times were to treat every indignant letter from a politician’s office as a quasi-disciplinary complaint against its opinion writers, it would transform its op-ed pages from a forum of fearless commentary into a curated gallery of safe, sanitized views. That would betray not only your readers, but the very tradition of journalism that The Manila Times claims as its legacy.
A more principled path is available and, I would argue, is already being followed:
– Publish Tiglao’s column.
– Publish Senator Lacson’s rejoinder as a letter to the editor.
– Allow other columnists, lawyers, scholars and citizens to weigh in, citing law, history and ethics.
– Trust readers to discern, debate and decide.
That is how a mature public sphere works. Not by threatening lawsuits, but by refining arguments in the furnace of public scrutiny.
Why defending Tiglao’s column is defending our collective right to know
One can disagree with Tiglao’s prose, his emphases, or even his conclusions. But defending his right to write that column — and your right to print it — is not about personal loyalty to a particular columnist. It is about preserving a minimum standard of freedom without which no serious investigation of state corruption, no whistleblowing, and no structural reform is possible.
Today the target is a senator’s feelings. Tomorrow it could be a journalist questioning flood-control allocations, a columnist connecting the dots between foreign policy and domestic plunder, or a citizen who dares to ask why Filipino sovereignty appears negotiable when the accused sits in Malacañang or in the Speaker’s office.
If every sharp inference, every uncomfortable question, and every hyperbolic phrase can be rebranded as “malicious, false and actionable,” the inevitable result is self-censorship. Writers will stop at the water’s edge. Editors will quietly decline controversial pieces. The public will see only what the powerful are generous enough to tolerate.
That is not the press envisioned by our 1987 Constitution, nor by the jurisprudence that has painstakingly carved out breathing room for criticism of public officials.
A respectful proposal
In light of the foregoing, I respectfully submit that:
– Tiglao’s column on Senator Lacson is a constitutionally protected exercise of fair political comment on a matter of undeniable public interest.
– The Lacson office’s characterization of the column as “malicious, false and highly actionable” rests on an unduly restrictive understanding of defamation law that, if adopted, would gravely chill press freedom.
— The Manila Times should stand by its columnist, continue to welcome rebuttals and letters, but firmly resist any pressure — subtle or overt — to censor, sanction or “correct” opinion writers for the crime of being unsparing toward the powerful.
In toxic times, the temptation is strong to tame the pen. But Philippine democracy will not be strengthened by a docile press. It will be strengthened by a press that allows readers to encounter clashing narratives — Tiglao’s, Lacson’s, and everyone in between — and to form their own judgments.
For as long as men and women seek public office, wield public power, and defend those who sit in the highest seats of government, there must be room for columns that call their defenses “stupid” or “sickening” when, in conscience and reason, that is how they appear to the writer.
To defend that room is to defend not just Rigoberto Tiglao, but the Filipino people’s right to a fearless conversation about those who govern them.
Arnedo S. Valera, Attorney, New York, USA, December 2, 2025
Atty. Arnedo S. Valera is the executive director of the Global Migrant Heritage Foundation and managing attorney at Valera & Associates, a US immigration and anti-discrimination law firm for over 32 years. He holds a master’s degree in International Affairs and International Law and Human Rights from Columbia University and was trained at the International Institute of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France. He obtained his Bachelor of Laws from Ateneo de Manila University. He is an AB-Philosophy Major at the University of Santo Tomas ( UST). He is a professor at San Beda Graduate School of Law (LLM Program), teaching International Security and Alliances
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