G.R. No. 126466 January 14, 1999 ARTURO BORJAL a.k.a.

ART BORJAL and MAXIMO SOLIVEN, petitioners, vs. COURT OF APPEALS and FRANCISCO WENCESLAO, respondents.

Facts :
A series of articles written by petitioner Borjal was published on different dates in his column Jaywalker. The articles dealt with the alleged anomalous activities of an "organizer of a conference" without naming or identifying private respondent. Neither did it refer to the (First National Conference on Land Transportation) FNCLT as the conference therein mentioned. Thereafter, private respondent filed a complaint with the National Press
Club (NPC) against petitioner Borjal for unethical conduct. He accused petitioner Borjal of using his column as a form of leverage to obtain contracts for his public relations firm, AA Borjal Associates. Apparently not satisfied with his complaint with the NPC, private respondent filed a criminal case for libel against petitioners Borjal and Soliven, among others. The court ruled in favor of the defendants which the CA affirmed. The petitioners moved for motion for reconsideration but was subsequently denied. Issue: Whether CA erred in (1) in ruling that the questioned articles lost their privileged character because of their publication in a newspaper of general circulation; (2) in ruling that private respondent has a valid cause of action for libel against petitioners although he failed to prove actual malice on their part, and that the prosecutors of the City of Manila, the Department of Justice, and eventually, the Office of the President, had already resolved that there was no sufficient evidence to prove the existence of libel;

Held: The petition was granted. Decision of CA denying motion for reconsideration are REVERSED and SET ASIDE.
A privileged communication may be either absolutely privileged or qualifiedly privileged. Absolutely privileged communications are those which are not actionable even if the author has acted in bad faith. An example is found in Sec. 11, Art.VI, of the 1987 Constitution which exempts a member of Congress from liability for any speech or debate in the Congress or in any Committee thereof. Upon the other hand, qualifiedly privileged communications containing defamatory imputations are not actionable unless found to have been made without good intention justifiable motive. To this genre belong "private communications" and "fair and true report without any comments or remarks." The Court of Appeals concluded that since malice is always presumed in the publication of defamatory matters in the absence of proof to the contrary, the question of privilege is immaterial. Malice connotes ill will or spite and speaks not in response to duty but merely to injure the reputation of the person defamed, and implies an intention to do ulterior and unjustifiable harm. 34 Malice is bad faith or bad motive. 35 It is the essence of the crime of libel. Primarily, private respondent failed to substantiate by preponderant evidence that petitioner was animated by a desire to inflict unjustifiable harm on his reputation, or that the articles were written and published without good motives or justifiable ends. On the other hand, we find petitioner Borjal to have acted in good faith. Moved by a sense of civic duty and prodded by his responsibility as a newspaperman, he proceeded to expose and denounce what he perceived to be a public deception. Surely, we cannot begrudge him for that. Every citizen has the right to enjoy a good name and reputation, but we do not consider that petitioner Borjal has violated that right in this case nor abused his press freedom. Furthermore, to be considered malicious, the libelous statements must be shown to have been written or published with the knowledge that they are false or in reckless disregard of whether they are false or not. 37 "Reckless disregard of what is false or not" means that the defendant entertains serious doubt as to the truth of the publication,38 or that he possesses a high degree of awareness of their probable falsity. 3