Is NBI Cebu head Oliva operating for Cebu rep Frasco?
Second of 4 parts
I HAVE no doubt at all that the head of the National Bureau of Investigation’s Cebu-based Central Visayas Regional Office, Rennan Oliva, is not only biased for but actively helping Cebu 5th District Rep. Duke Frasco in his pursuit of a baseless libel charge against me. Is Cebu such a small, tightly knit community that its law enforcement officers and politicians are helping each other?
Read on for you to decide for yourself that Oliva is in effect not just lawyering for Frasco but has even assumed the role of his PR operator in portraying me as an irresponsible journalist.
If they can inflict such a gross injustice on me, a journalist of 30 years (without a single libel case), a former Cabinet member and presidential chief of staff, a former ambassador of the Republic, and modesty aside, the sole recipient of the five most prestigious awards for journalistic excellence* in the country, the NBI and any unscrupulous politician can do this to any journalist.
This has to be stopped.
Last Feb. 17, I was told by our newspaper president that she had received a letter from Frasco’s lawyers, the Gana, Avisado and Atienza law firm, threatening “legal action” against the paper (but no mention if I were included) if it did not apologize for my column. (Gana’s claim to fame is that he was the sole lawyer for the stunningly unsuccessful “Pirma” bid in 2022 of House Speaker Martin Romualdez to amend the Constitution in order for him to become prime minister.)
My column dealt with my opinion that the congressman’s admission in a speech that he voted for Vice President Sara Duterte’s impeachment in exchange for benefits for his constituents was “in effect bribery.”
Indeed, after more research, I found several Supreme Court decisions ruling that my opinion is 100 percent legally correct. Frasco’s acceptance of the benefit from the Speaker is not only bribery in effect but actual bribery, punishable with the same penalties if Frasco had used all of the proceeds to fatten his bank account. I explained this in my column last Friday.
I had forgotten about the threat against the Manila Times, busy as I was with other investigative pieces I was working on, and since the lawyers made no mention of me at all as the subject of their threat. I received no communication at all, verbal or written, from Frasco or his lawyers.
Subpoena
And then out of the blue, our office sent me on April 7, through Viber, a “subpoena ad testificandum” issued by the NBI director Jaime R. Santiago (but signed only by deputy director Ferdinand Lavin) on April 4.
The subpoena read “you are hereby commanded to be and appear (at the NBI’s National Capital Region office) on April 8 to give your evidence on a certain investigation. In small print, the document read, “fail not under penalty of law to shed light in the investigation of the complaint filed by Rep. Frasco of alleged violation” of the libel provision of the Cybercrime Prevention Act.
To be honest, I was shocked. This is the first time I’ve been issued a subpoena in my whole life, and because of its association created by the likes of Red party-list Stephen Paduano, it could mean my immediately being jailed. I decided to fight it with all my resources, since this is also a fight for press freedom, which I had fought for even during martial law.
The NBI even purposely sent the communication to our office on April 7, perhaps thinking that I would not be able to go to their offices the next day, which could then be an excuse for ordering my arrest. Indeed, still recovering from flu, I had to ask my son-in-law to skip work and drive the two-hour trip from my residence in Southern Luzon, and through the horrendous traffic of Manila.
Senora
After waiting for an hour in an NBI agent’s cramped office that was just a bit bigger than a toilet cubicle, the agent I was supposed to meet finally arrived, a nerdy-looking but amiable young guy. He introduced himself as agent Francis Senora and that he was with the Cebu office’s Cybercrime Division.
Was my accuser Frasco there? No. Were his lawyers? No.
I nearly fell off my chair when Senora said the only reason why I was summoned to the NBI office was to inform me that “there were these charges” against me. What? He spent substantial taxpayers’ money to fly from Cebu to Manila and stay overnight in a hotel, while I had to commute four hours and spend P2,000 for tolls and gas, merely for the purpose of telling me that there was this accusation against me?
Couldn’t the NBI just have emailed, messaged, vibered, signaled me that this was so?
Can I have a copy of Frasco’s complaint? I asked. No, Senora said, even if the four-inch thick complaint was prominently on his desk. (To this day, I haven’t been given a copy of the complaint, a violation of the Constitution.) I started to debunk Frasco’s accusations. Senora stopped me, saying the meeting was not for the purpose of getting my side. I was surprised as that contradicted the subpoena’s “command” for me “to appear at the NBI office and give my evidence” on the Frasco complaint.
Senora explained that the NBI merely certifies that an allegedly libelous statement had been actually posted and disseminated on the internet. It doesn’t evaluate the validity of the complaint. It merely submits it to a justice department prosecutor if it should be filed in court. (Agent Manuel Bocaling, representing the National Capital Region, witnessed our conversation.) I was baffled and dismissed the incident as another case of the government’s brainless, useless procedures.
Set-up
However, two weeks later, I would realize that that madness had a reason. It was a set-up.
On Feb. 28, the NBI’s Cebu head Rennan Oliva called a press conference and disseminated a press release to as many media outlets as his people could muster that he had filed cyberlibel charges against me at the Justice Department’s Cebu prosecutor’s office for making “malicious and baseless claims” against Frasco. (Oliva is known to be such a publicity hound that he has called more press conferences than the NBI director Santiago himself, leading many to believe that he is aspiring to head the agency ASAP.)
Oliva claimed that “Tiglao was summoned to appear before the NBI-National Capital Region [and] failed to present any evidence to substantiate his claims.”
Oliva is a liar and should not be in law enforcement. I wasn’t asked at all to comment on the complaints, which, officially, I don’t even know what these are, as I wasn’t given a copy. Contrary to Oliva’s claims, I wasn’t informed and briefed about the nature of the complaint in that meeting at the NBI office. I hope he doesn’t pressure his agent Senora to commit perjury.
Oliva, in his interviews with the press, claimed that my column saying Frasco admitted to having been bribed to vote for Sara’s impeachment had “no basis at all and therefore was fake news.”
This reveals that he didn’t even read my column, nor did he nor his staff study Frasco’s complaint. He didn’t even evaluate Frasco’s complaint and just hurriedly asked the Department of Justice to prosecute me.
The basis of my commentary was Frasco’s own speech (which was recorded) in which he said that he voted for Sara’s impeachment, apart from a grudge that he held against her, in order to obtain benefits for his district.
That is defined by the Penal Code as bribery. Oliva obviously is unaware of this legal definition of bribery, and the Supreme Court’s many decisions dismissing an accused’s pleas that the proceeds of their bribery were not used for personal gain.
Oliva didn’t study the basis of my commentary, and immediately transmitted Frasco’s complaint to the Department of Justice. He swallowed hook, line and sinker Frasco’s claims against me. Why did he? Of course, I have my suspicions.
Frasco’s lawyers didn’t have to break a sweat; Frasco didn’t have to hire media operators to convict me by publicity. Oliva did these jobs for him.
Oliva obviously is ignorant of Section 3e of Republic Act 3019 (the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act of 1960) which penalizes public officers who cause “undue injury to any party… who give any private party unwarranted benefits, advantage, or preference” in the discharge of their duties through manifest partiality, evident bad faith, or gross inexcusable negligence.”
Oliva is also ignorant of Republic Act 6713 (the 1989 Code of Conduct and Ethical Standards for Public Officials and Employees), which “prohibits officials from using their position to favor private parties, including in disputes.”
By his actions that portray me as having committed libel, Oliva was obviously serving not the law, but Frasco, a member of the rich and powerful Garcia political clan of Cebu.
Director Santiago, a former judge known to be of impeccable integrity, should fire officials like Oliva, who will only drag the NBI to the mud by portraying the agency as a suppressor of a free press.
*See https://rigobertotiglao.com/curriculum-vitae/ for a list of these five awards.
(The views expressed therein are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of the editors, officers, staff, publisher and owners of this paper).
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Is NBI Cebu head Oliva operating for Cebu rep Frasco?
Source: Breaking News PH
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