BY ALEX P. VIDAL
Two hotheads occupying powerful positions in so tiny a country could not but produce one titanic conflict.
The feud between former Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) secretary Luis T. Santos and former Iloilo City mayor Rodolfo T. Ganzon became not only a local issue, but also a national event 23 years ago.
The grand old man of Davao City politics, who died last week at 87, became Ganzon's first known public enemy No. 1 --along with Tita Cory--since Ganzon smoked the proverbial peace pipe with long-time nemesis, former President Ferdinand Marcos, who released him from jail before the 1986 EDSA Revolution.
QUARREL
Their quarrel began on August 11, 1988 when Santos slapped the mercurial Ilonggo leader with a 60-day preventive suspension, a move by the Tita Cory administration that marked as one of the darkest political episodes in Iloilo City.
Santos canned Ganzon of Nacionalista-Timawa Party "for terrorizing teachers in front of their students, padlocking the offices of city councilors who were his political enemies, and closing down several downtown establishments."
Unfazed, Ganzon cried political harrassment claiming he was being persecuted for refusing to join Tita Cory's Laban ng Demokratikong Pilipino (LDP) party and for not allowing the Small Town Lottery (STL) to operate in the city.
'BASTOS'
"Santos bastos," thundered Ganzon, who was called by the Philippine Free Press as "the stormy petrel of the south" in the magazine's 1962 issue when he was senator.
Surrounded by Timawa loyalists willing to risk their lives, Ganzon initially refused to yield his post to vice mayor Mansueto Malabor and engaged Santos and the Tita Cory administration in torrid verbal shootouts that made newspaper headlines for several weeks. City hall almost became a garrison with cops and civilians milling around in suspended animation.
But one national tabloid became an injured bystander when Ganzon filed a libel case against Santos and the tabloid's three reporters who "erroneously" wrote a story about Ganzon's suspension based on Santos' casus belli against the popular city chief executive.
DECISION
In a decision handed by RTC Branch 23 judge Tito G. Gustilo dated July 9, 1997, Santos and the three reporters from the People's Journal -- Manuel Villareal, Louie Camino, and Armando Austria -- were ordered to pay Ganzon P500,000 for moral damages and P20,000 for attorney's fee.
Their conviction stemmed from an article that appeared in that newspaper where it also reported that "during his visit in Iloilo City last month (July 1988), Santos was informed that Ganzon has been collecting amount about P16,000 monthly from an association of taxi operators in the city."
It further reported: "Santos added that about 30 criminal charges are also expected to be filed against Ganzon before the court."
ASSERT
Ganzon had asserted that the article was "a big lie and libelous per se and is intended to harass as well as to subject me to embarrassment before the residents of Iloilo City and also to the people nationwide."
Because of that article, Ganzon had lamented that "I was degraded before the people and my constituents and nationally because having been a senator before, the whole country was my constituents."
He argued that his cause of action against the three reporters was that "they acted in bad faith in publishing a statement which is defamatory without giving me a chance to explain."
'UNFAIR'
Gustilo stressed that it was "unfair to cause the publication of an alleged 'tong' collection from an association of taxi operators upon the mere reckless 'say-so' of any Tom, Dick and Harry based upon unverified if not false supposition, much less upon proven facts, thereby casting aspersion on the character of the man himself."
Gustilo's contention stated that: "They may attack and seek to destroy, by fair means or foul, the whole fabric of his statemanships, but the law does not permit them to attack the man itself."
"They may falsely charge that his policies are bad, but they may not falsely charge that he is bad."
The judge also ruled that "unfortunately for Santos, no evidence was offered to prove the truth" that Ganzon had committed what had been published in that paper.
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