G.R. No. 103525 - Marcopper Mining Corp. vs. National Labor Relations Commission

In August 1987, the Board of Medicine of the Professional Regulation Commission (PRC) conducted the physicians’ licensure examinations, with 2,835 examinees and 941 failures.
On February 10, 1988, following allegations of scoring errors—including mistakes in answer marking, erroneous counting of scores, and erroneous transmutation of raw scores—a petition for mandamus was filed before the Regional Trial Court (RTC) of Manila by Abello and over 200 other unsuccessful examinees, seeking a re-check and re-evaluation of the examination papers.

Rey Vidal, a news writer and reporter of petitioner GMA Network, Inc. (formerly Republic Broadcasting System, Inc.), covered the filing of the petition for mandamus.
Vidal’s telecast on Channel 7 on February 10, 1988 detailed:

The filing of the mandamus petition by 227 examinees against the PRC and the Board of Medicine for alleged errors in the licensure examinations.
Statements regarding the alleged “gross, massive, haphazard, whimsical and capricious” checking of the examination papers.
The procedural details about the venues, the involvement of multiple subjects (e.g., general medicine, biochemistry, surgery, obstetrics and gynecology), and the participation of several schools.
The revelation by the petitioners that, upon being allowed to view their own test papers and even obtain the official test questions, discrepancies in marking had allegedly lowered the examinees’ scores.

On September 21, 1988, respondents—comprising physicians (including Jesus G. Bustos, Teodora R. Ocampo, Victor V. Buencamino, Cesar F. Villafuerte, Artemio T. Ordinario, and Virgilio C. Basilio), who were former chairman and members of the Board of Medicine—filed a damage suit against Vidal and GMA Network, Inc.
The respondents claimed that the news report was false, malicious, and one-sided, and that it defamed them by blaming their professional integrity without giving them an opportunity to be heard.
Additionally, respondents argued that the insertion of unrelated old film footage (from a 1982 demonstration by doctors at the Philippine General Hospital regarding a wage and economic dispute) in the telecast served to further misrepresent the facts.
In their complaint (Civil Case No. 88-1952, raffled to Branch 64 of the RTC of Makati City), the respondents alleged that:

The report was recklessly prepared, neglecting the duty to provide a balanced view.
The old film footage, shown without the identifying character-generated words “file video” to indicate its historical nature, created an erroneous impression that the demonstration was connected to the pending mandamus petition.

The RTC, in a decision dated October 17, 1995, found for the petitioners (defendants a quo), holding that:

The February 10, 1988 news report was a straightforward narration of a court petition concerning public officials.
The communication was privileged under the law, as it merely reported facts already presented in the filed petition.

After the trial court’s denial of a motion for reconsideration, the respondents appealed to the Court of Appeals (CA) in CA-G.R. CV No. 52240.

The CA reversed the RTC decision on January 25, 2001, awarding moral and exemplary damages against the petitioners.
The CA's decision was primarily premised on its view that the insertion of the unrelated 1982 film footage, absent the clarifying “file video” caption, evidenced malice and thus tainted the otherwise privileged report.

Committed reversible error and abused its discretion by imputing actual malice on the news telecast despite its nature as a qualifiedly privileged communication.
Erroneously dismissed their evidence regarding the use of the character-generated words “file video” to distinguish the old film footage.
Wrongly imputed malice to petitioners for not presenting a tape copy of the news report, alleging that a copy could easily be secured from the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC).
Permitted the respondent Board of Medicine to later seek an increased award in damages despite not contesting the Court of Appeals’ decision in a separate petition.

Whether the February 10, 1988 televised news report, which detailed the filing of the mandamus petition, constitutes libel because of its alleged misrepresentation of facts.
Whether the report, being a fair and succinct narrative of a matter of public concern, falls within the ambit of privileged communications, thereby precluding a libel action.

Whether the insertion of the unrelated 1982 film footage, which allegedly conveyed an impression that other doctors were endorsing the petition against the Board of Medicine, amounted to malice.
Whether the absence (or presence) of the identifying caption “file video” on the news report alters the legal assessment on the privileged status of the communication.

Whether the CA abused its discretion by overriding the trial court’s determination that the news report was privileged, essentially by injecting malice based on circumstantial aspects of the TV broadcast.
Whether the petitioners’ failure to produce a tape copy of the telecast constitutes an element of malice, as imputed by the CA, or is merely a procedural lapse without substantive impact on the regime of privilege.

Whether respondents, by not separately petitioning the Court of Appeals regarding an increased award, could later seek such an adjustment under the comment dated May 7, 2001.