The Market Monitor Minding the Nation's Business
Actor Robin Padilla filed before the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) last Thursday charges of online defamation and online libel against one of the Internet users who criticized him after he posted on his Instagram account a photograph of a shaded ballot allegedly taken by him inside a polling precinct on May 9.
In that photo, the ovals beside the name of Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte and Anak Mindanao (Amin) party-list are shaded. Padilla is a staunch supporter of the Partido Demokrationg Pilipino-Lakas ng Bayan candidate and the party-list group.
The photo has been deleted after the bashing escalated, but not before it was circulated on the Internet and lambasted by netizens.
The Internet user who was charged, identified as “Kryssy Kallerki,” said she would like to see him punished for posting that picture—something that the Commission on Elections (Comelec) prohibits.
“This is a clear violation of election law. Throw him in jail!” she commented.
According to a Philippine Daily Inquirer report, the remark forced the star to tell Kylie, one of his children in Australia, that he is an ex-convict.
The complaint came three days after Padilla’s lawyer, Rudolf Philip B. Jurado, issued on the actor’s behalf a statement denying that a crime was committed.
“Mr. Padilla desires to convey that he never violated any law or rule regarding the alleged photograph of his ballot, since it was neither an official ballot nor taken inside a voting precinct,” Jurado said. “Mr. Padilla is…legally barred [from exercising] his right to vote.”
Padilla posted that statement on his social-media accounts, explaining that he did so because he refuses to tolerate the “assassination of my character.”
The actor said in the caption that “freedom was taken away” from him in 1995, when he was convicted for illegal possession of firearms, and was only given conditional pardon, which did not restore his right to vote.
He added that the government also took away his right to bear arms in 2013 and “left me defenseless against evil and political gangsters.”
Padilla also said he would call on the Comelec to arrest him and put him in jail if proven that he “went to a precinct, voted and took pictures of an official ballot.”
“If proven otherwise, then the legal battle should start and make the guilty answer for their actions, especially the bullying,” he added.
According to Jurado, the criticism the photo received was affecting Padilla’s product endorsements.
He said some of the companies whose products Padilla is endorsing have been calling the actor and expressing apprehension.
The Padilla camp feared the online bashing may lead to the end of those endorsement deals.
Jurado said the Padilla camp would scrutinize the “thread” of the actor’s social-media accounts to get the names of the other bashers and include them in the complaint.
Atty. Ronald Aguto Jr., chief of the NBI Cybercrime Division, meanwhile, has ordered a team to investigate the charges.
ALVIN I. DACANAY WITH PNA