Special Torts

Violation of Civil/Political Right/s

Newsweek v IAC

 Facts:

Incorporated associations of sugarcane planters in Negros Occidental filed a case in

their own behalf and/or as a class suit in behalf of all sugarcane planters in the province

against Newsweek Inc. and two of their non-resident correspondents/reporters, Fred

Bruning and Barry Came alleging that petitioner committed libel against them by the

publication of the article "An Island of Fear" in their magazine which portrayed the island

as a place dominated by big landowners or sugarcane planters who exploited the

impoverished sugarcane laborers and brutalized and killed them with impunity. They

claim it showed a malicious use of falsehood, slanted presentation and

misrepresentation of facts, putting them in a bad light. Petitioner argues that private

respondents' complaint failed to state a cause of action because the complainant made

no allegation that anything contained in the article referred specifically to any one of

them and libel can be committed only against individual reputation or, if directed at a

group, there is defamation only if the libel can be said to reach beyond the mere

collectivity to do damage to a specific, individual group member's reputation.

Issue: Whether or not private respondents has a cause of action

Held:

Private respondents’ complaint was dismissed.

There is no cause of action. In order to maintain a libel suit, it is essential that the victim

be identifiable, although it is not necessary that he be named.Defamatory matter which

does not reveal the identity of the person upon whom the imputation is case affords no

ground of action unless it be shown that the readers could have identified the

personality of the individual defamed. This principle is important especially where a

group or class of persons claim to have been defamed because the larger the

collectivity, the more difficult it is for the individual member to prove that the defamatory

remarks apply to him. Where the defamatory is alleged to have been directed at a group

or class, the statement must be so sweeping or all-embracing as to apply to every

individual in the that group sufficiently specific so that each individual can prove the

defamatory statement specifically pointed to him so that he can bring action separately.

The case is NOT a class suit. The plaintiffs here have a separate and distinct reputation

in the community. They do not have a common or general interest in this controversy.-

The disputed portion of the article that they claim is libelous never singled out plaintiff as

a sugar planter. The report merely stated that the victim has been arrested by members

of a special police unit brought into the area by Sola, the mayor of Kabankalan. The

report, referring as it does to an official act performed by an elective public official, is

within the realm of privilege and protected by the constitutional guarantees of

freespeech and press.The article in question is not libelous in nature. Undoubtedly, the

statements in the article are sweeping and exaggerated, but these articles may also

serve to prick the consciences of those who have but are not doing anything or enough

for those who do not have.