WIKILEAKS

QUESTION:  Can we create our own wikileaks to expose government or corporations’ anomalies?

COMMENT/REMARK:

          No, we cannot create our own wikileaks to expose anomalies pertaining to government or major corporations.  Using or creating a website to be used for for posting items, articles, or information regardless whether such items, articles, or information are for personal, commercial, or public use, is a form of publication.  For publication is a mean or way of communicating matters to 3^rd person or persons. 

         

One must consider the following before using or creating a website:

1.     objective for exposing acts of the entity

2.     effect of the exposure not only to the entity but

to the industry as a whole

3.     reaction of those affected entity or industry

In using the website to post expose anomalies may be considered libellous for it will inflict a malicious imputation that will dishonour, discredit or taint the name of a person or entity.  For as defined in Art. 353 of the Revised Penal Code – Libel is a public, malicious imputation of a crime, or of a vice or defect, real or imaginary, or any act, omission, condition, status or circumstance tending to cause the dishonour, discredit, or contempt of a natural or juridical person, or to blacken the memory of one who is dead.  It is a defamatory act with the following elements, which must be present: 

1.     There is an imputation of a crime, or of a vice or defect, real or imaginary, or any act, omission, condition, status or circumstance.

2.     The imputation must be made publicly;

3.     It must be malicious;

4.     the imputation must be directed at a natural or juridical person, or one who is dead;

5.     the imputation must tend to cause the dishonour, discredit or contempt of the person defamed.

Likewise as provided by Art. 354 – Requirements of publicity – Every defamatory imputation is presumed to be malicious, even if it be true, if no good intention and justifiable motive for making it is shown, except in the following cases:

1.     A private communication made by any person to another in the performance of any legal, moral or social duty;

2.     A fair and true report, made in good faith, without any comments or remarks, of any judicial, legislative, or other official proceedings which are not of confidential nature, or of any statement, report, or speech delivered in said proceedings, or of any other act performed by public officers in the exercise of their functions.

The two (2) exceptions mentioned are privileged communication.  It is only in these instances wherein publicity can be considered not malicious. 

Furthermore, it is not the intention of the person who posted the item, article or information that is material but the fact which is passed on and retained in the mind of the person/s of reasonable understanding, discretion and candour that matters.  Also, we should take into consideration the surrounding circumstances which were known to the reader or viewer.