R. MARINO CORPUS, PLAINTIFF AND APPELLANT, VS. MIGUEL CUADERNO, SR., DEFENDANT AND APPELLEE.

This is a suit for damages commenced in the Court of First Instance
of Manila, where plaintiff asked for half a million pesos and
defendant, on his counterclaim, for one and a half million. After trial
the court dismissed the complaint and awarded 11,000.00 to defendant.
Plaintiff appealed directly to Us in view of the amount claimed by him.

During the time pertinent to this case defendant was Governor of the
Central Bank of the Philippines. On January 13, 1949 Corpus was
appointed Economist in the Department of Economic Research of said
bank. Thereafter he received promotions in position and salary. By 1954
he was Director of the Department of Loans and Credit and Rural Banks
Administration. On December 15, 1954 a number of employees of the Dank
tiled an administrative complaint against him. Upon their petition he
was suspended from office on February 8, 1955. After investigation tie
was found guilty on five counts and upon recommendation or the Governor
was penalized with suspension without pay from February 8, 1955 to
August 30, 1955, the date the Monetary Board of the Bank rendered its
decision.

On August 31, 1955 Corpus received a letter from Cuaderno informing
him that he had been “reinstated in the service of the bank” with the
designation of “Technical Assistant to the Governor.” On January 17,
1956 he was appointed Special Assistant to the Governor, in charge of
the Export Department.

On March 7, 1958 several of his co-employees in the same department
filed an administrative complaint against him, alleging a number of
acts of misfeasance. The Monetary Board, upon recommendation of the
Governor, suspended him on March 18.

On March 25, 1958 Corpus instituted the present action, alleging
that his suspension was unwarranted and had been brought about by
Cuaderno’s malicious machinations. The latter’s counterclaim, after the
denials and special defenses in his answer, alleged that the complaint
had been riled maliciously and that plaintiff had committed libel
against him.

On May 5, 1939, while this case was still pending in the lower
court, the three-man committee created to investigate the 1958
administrative charges against plaintiff reported to the Monetary Board
that it round no basis to recommend disciplinary action against him and
therefore urged that he be reinstated. But on July 20, 1959 the
Monetary Board resolved that:

“After an exhaustive and mature deliberation or the
report of the aforesaid fact-finding committee, and representations or
both complainants and respondent, through their respective counsel;
and, further, alter a thorough review of the service record ox the
respondent, particularly the various cases presented against him,
object or Monetary Board Resolution No. 1527 dated August 30, 1955,
which all involve fitness, discipline, etc. of respondent; and
moreover, upon formal statement of the Governor that he has lost
confidence in the respondent as Special Assistant to the Governor and
in charge or the Export Department (such position being primarily
confidential and highly technical in nature), the Monetary Board finds
that the continuance or the respondent in the service of the Central
Bank would be prejudicial to the best interest or the Central Bank and,
therefore, in accordance with the provisions of Section 14 or the Bank
Charter, considers the respondent, Mr. R. Marino Corpus, resigned as or
the date of his suspension.”

On March 22, 1960, the lower court rendered the decision appealed
from, absolving Cuaderno from liability but ordering Corpus to pay
damages, as aforesaid, the allegation of libel having been duly proven.

Appellant now avers that the lower court erred in holding (1) that
appellee is not liable for damages for illegally causing his suspension
and eventual removal; and (2) that appellant had committed libel
against appellee.

In connection with the first issue it is pertinent to state that the
question of legality of appellant’s removal by resolution of the
Monetary Board of July 20, 1959 has been decided by Us in another case
(G. R. No. L-23721, March 31, 1965). We found there that he had been
removed not for any of the charges in the administrative complaint
against him in 1958—charges as to which no specific findings were made
by the Monetary Board—but by reason of loss of confidence by the
Governor of the Bank; and held that loss of confidence alone is not a
sufficient and legitimate cause for removal even if the position
involved, as in appellant’s case, belongs to the category of
policy-determining, primarily confidential or highly technical
positions referred to in the Constitution. In that case, therefore, We
ordered appellant’s reinstatement in the service.

The question here now is whether appellant’s removal was the result
of malicious machinations on the part of appellee, as alleged in the
complaint. Appellant starts by saying that Cuaderno harbored a feeling
of professional jealousy against him because he was a much solicited
guest speaker on economic matters—a subject appellee considered his
forte; and that on one occasion, during a hearing in Congress,
appellant gave testimony contrary to that which appellee had given,
thus putting the latter in a bad light. Resentment according to
appellant was followed by overt acts, thus: Appellee induced a number
of bank employees to file the administrative complaints of 1955 and
1958. The 1955 complaint was dated January 20, but as early as January
11 appellee saw to it that an investigating committee was created by
the Monetary Board. And before appellant was given a chance to explain
his side he was suspended, upon appellee’s recommendation, on February
8, 1955. Appellant was not given a chance to read the charges against
him except during the trial of the instant case. After the
investigation appellant received a letter from appellee, informing him
of his reinstatement, but without mentioning the fact that he had been
found guilty and given the penalty of suspension without pay. Appellee
even congratulated him on his exoneration. To completely convince
appellant of this, appellee ordered the preparation of the “back
salary” check corresponding to appellant’s period of suspension, only
to have the check cancelled later on. After the second administrative
complaint was filed in 1958 appellee hastily convened an extraordinary
meeting of the Monetary Board in order to magnify the false charges
against appellant although appellee knew that the meeting was violative
of the Central Bank charter, because the object of the meeting, as
aforesaid, was not stated in the call, and the object actually stated
did not justify an extraordinary meeting at all. To lull appellant into
a false sense of security, appellee simply notified him, by letters, to
prepare comments on the administrative charges, leading him to believe
that he had all the time to do so, but afterwards appellee suddenly
changed his tactics and directed the secretary of the Monetary Board to
demand that appellant answer the charges as soon as possible. And on
March 18, 1958 appellee informed appellant that he had been suspended
effective that day. The corresponding letters and notices were
delivered to appellant at his house by the bank’s security guards, who
were in uniform and fully armed—a manner of delivery that proved
humiliating to appellant.

We first take up the question of appellant’s removal from office as
a result of the administrative complaint filed against him in 1958. The
removal was embodied in a resolution of the Monetary Board, upon
appellee’s recommendation as Governor of the Bank. The procedure
adopted was in accordance with the provision of the bank charter that
the Monetary Board shall “on the recommendation of the Governor,
appoint, fix the remunerations, and remove all officers and employees
of the Central Bank.” (Section 14, R.A. 265). Under this provision the
Board has the power to adopt or reject the recommendation. The decisive
action belonged to the Board, not to appellee. In speaking of the
action of the Board, this Court said in G.R. No. L-23721, supra:
“we do not believe that in opining that the position of Corpus was one
dependent on confidence, the defendant Monetary Board necessarily acted
with vindictiveness or wantonness, and not in the exercise of honest
judgment.”

The record does not snow that it was appellee who instigated either
or both of the administrative cases against appellant. The 1955
complaint was filed by ten bank employees, while the one in 1958 was
filed by eighteen of appellant’s subordinates in his department—persons
who would naturally be expected to reel greater loyalty to appellant,
their immediate superior, than to appellee. None of the complainants in
the first group were in the second group. No acts are attributed to
appellee from which it may be inferred that he convinced all or a large
number of them to file the charges.

Appellant stresses the fact that in the first administrative case,
even before the complainants tiled their complaint of January 20, 1955
the Monetary Board had already created an investigating committee,
cased on “papers presented by the Governor.” The resolution to that
effect was passed January 11, 1955. The evidence shows, however, that
the complainants charged appellant as early as December 15, l954,
reiterated their complaint on the following December 26 and again on
January 3, 1955. The complaint of January 20, 1955 was only a more
formal and detailed narration of the charges.

In any event, some of the charges were substantiated. True,
appellant was absolved of negligence in the performance of official
duties and dishonesty, but he was found guilty on live other counts,
namely: (1) physical maltreatment of a co-employee; (2) use of
insulting language; (3) oppressive treatment of subordinates; (4)
promulgation of unreasonable office regulations; and (5) defiance to
the Monetary Board. Under the circumstances, malice can hardly be
imputed to anybody in the formulation of those charges.

Appellant says it was only during the trial of the present case that
he read a copy or the 1955 administrative complaint against him. We are
hard put to believe this. One who is thus charged, and suspended by
reason thereof, would lose no time finding out what the charges are.
And after the administrative investigations had been terminated and
appellant received a letter informing him of his restoration to office,
he would want to know whether he had been exonerated or not. The fact
is that he requested appellee to intercede for him in convincing the
members of the Monetary Board to amend the resolution imposing upon him
the penalty of suspension without pay—a fact which certainly does not
jibe with his alleged ignorance of the charges or which he had been
round guilty.

Contrary to appellant’s claim, it was not appellee who was
responsible for the cancellation of the check covering the period or
his suspension. In fact appellee was the one who had the check prepared
on September 6, 1955, just before he left on a trip to Istanbul; out as
appellant himself stated in a letter-complaint he sent to the
Presidential Complaints and Action Committee the check “was
subsequently cancelled upon orders of Acting Deputy Governor Castillo
on the strength of the Monetary Board resolution which was prepared
after Governor Cuaderno’s departure on September 6th.” This is
confirmed by appellant’s witness, Jose Carmona, who was Chief
Accountant of the Central Bank at the time.

Neither was appellee responsible for appellant’s preventive
suspension in connection with the two administrative cases against him.
The pertinent resolution of the Monetary Board shows that it suspended
appellant (in 1955) “after being appraised (sic) of the findings and
observations of the Committee created on January 11, 1955 on the matter
at its present stage.” The Board was then acting on complainants’
petition dated January 3, 1955, precisely urging appellant’s
suspension. Likewise it appears that in the 1958 administrative case
the complainants riled, on March 12 of that year, a motion for the
immediate suspension or relief from office of appellant; and (to quote
from the corresponding resolution) “after a lengthy and mature
deliberation on the matter and upon the recommendation of the Governor,
the Board, by unanimous vote, decided to suspend from office effective
today, March 18, 1958, Mr. R. Marino Corpus.” Both acts of suspension
were by the Monetary Board, not by appellee. If appellee recommended
suspension, he did so in the performance of his duty as he saw it and
not in pursuance of an insidious scheme against appellant.

Concerning the alleged humiliating manner in which the
communications from the Monetary Board were served upon appellant, we
fail to see how appellee may be held responsible. The bank’s security
guards who delivered them may have been in uniform and armed at the
time, but it does not appear that they did anything to call the
public’s attention to the import of the messages they were carrying. If
they acted in an oppressive and high-handed manner, it is they and not
appellee who should be made to answer.

Appellant says that after appellee had lulled him into a false sense
of security in connection with the 1958 case, the latter suddenly
pressed him to rile his answer without first furnishing him a copy or
the complaint. The record fails to substantiate this grievance. The
complaint was filed on March 7, 1958. Appellant received a letter from
Deputy Governor Castillo asking him to appear at the Central Bank at 9
in the evening or March 10, 1958, to furnish the Monetary Board with
certain information. According to appellant, when he went to the
meeting hall as directed he round nobody there except the Board
secretary, Attorney Filomeno Sta. Ana. In the afternoon of March 14,
1958 appellant received a letter from Sta. Ana asking him to answer the
charges. Appellant apparently did not reply to the letter, Then on
March 17, 1958 Sta. Ana, upon appellee’s instructions, again sent
appellant a memorandum asking him to submit his answer without delay.
Instead of answering the charges, or asking for a copy thereof if he
did not have a copy, as he now claims, appellant had his subordinate,
Orlando Villanueva, write a letter on March 18, 1958, telling Sta. Ana
that “Mr. Corpus has instructed me to inform you that his lawyer, Atty.
Rosauro Alvarez (Roseller Lim and Rosauro Alvarez Law Offices) is now
sick with flu and is asking for time.” Considering chat appellant had
engaged a lawyer to defend him, his allegation or ignorance or the
charges deserves scant credit.

All that may be said about appellee’s actuations is that he lost
confidence in appellant in view ox the charges filed against him in
1958; and although they were not substantiated, appellee believed in
good faith that such loss of confidence was sufficient reason to
recommend appellant’s removal.

We come now to the question of libel, which is the subject or
appellee’s counterclaim. The statements for which appellee seeks
damages from appellant appeared in the March 21, 1958 issue of The Manila Chronicle, as follows:

“CORPUS TALKS OF ‘INTRIGUER'”

“A
suspended Central Bank official yesterday said that a high-ranking CB
official, who was dismissed for malversation from the Philippine
National Bank before the war, intrigued and instigated the riling of
charges against him.

“In an interview, R. Mariano Corpus, who
was suspended the other day as special assistant to the CB governor and
head of the CB export department asserted that the ‘intriguer’ was
‘dismissed from the PNB when my father, Judge Rafael Corpus, was
president of the bank.’

“Corpus was suspended on the basis of an administrative complaint filed by 18 of the 78 employees of the CB export department.

“In
a previous interview, Corpus preferred not to comment on his suspension
beyond saying that ‘time will tell who instigated the charges, and why.’

“Yesterday,
Corpus called for the ouster of the CB official he was referring to,
averring that this official was automatically disqualified by the CB
charter from holding a position in the bank which calls for ‘high moral
integrity.’

“When this story hits the streets, the CB
official who will be cussing me and will be pushing hard to have me
disqualified from the CB will be the one who instigated the charges
against me,’ Corpus added. ‘He will stop at nothing to run me down,
because now that he is exposed, he is automatically disqualified by the
charter of the bank from holding a position which calls for high moral
integrity.’

“Recalling how this CB official was dismissed
from the PNB before the war, Corpus said the man was discovered
‘milking’ a sugar central.

“The suspended CB official added
that President Quezon ordered this official’s dismissal because he felt
that the moment he (Mr. Quezon) was convinced a government official
holding a position of trust was unfit to remain in public service, out
he would go.

“ASK THEM”

“Pressed for
the identification of the official he was referring to, Corpus said the
following would be in a position to reveal who the person was; CB
Governor Miguel Cuaderno, who was assistant general manager of the PNB
then; CB legal counsel Natalio Balboa, who was in the PNB legal
department; CB chief accountant Jose Carmona, who was also in the PNB
accounting department, and others like Primitivo Lovina, president of
the Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines; PNB President Arsenio
Jison, Manuel Marquez, president of the Commercial Bank and Trust
Company, and Alfonso Calalang, President of the Bankers Association of
the Philippines.”

In disclaiming liability, appellant points out that in the
aforequoted news item it does not appear that he was speaking of
appellee.

In order to maintain a libel suit it is essential that the victim be identifiable (People vs.
Monton, L-16772, November 30, 1962), although it is not necessary that
he be named (91 A.L.R. 1161). It is enough by intrinsic reference the
allusion is apparent or if the publication contains matters of
description or reference to facts and circumstances from which others
reading the article may know the plaintiff was intended, or if he is
pointed out by extraneous circumstances so that persons knowing him
could and did understand that he was the person referred to.

While no name is mentioned in appellant’s defamatory statements, the
following circumstances mentioned therein make the object
ascertainable: (1) the person in question was a high ranking Central
Bank official; (2) he was formerly an official of the Philippine
National Bank, and at the time had something to do with sugar centrals;
(3) his identity is known by the persons named therein; and (4) he was
the one who instigated the aforementioned charges against appellant.

All these circumstances point to appellee. It is established by the
evidence that at least two other persons who read the article readily
realized that it referred to appellee. Asked how he immediately arrived
at such a conclusion, Manuel Marquez explained that “there is a
paragraph in the article which says that this CB official was dismissed
from the PNB before the war, Corpus said the man was discovered milking
a sugar central;” and that “the only official who is at present in the
Central Bank and who was with the Philippine National Bank prior to the
establishment of the Central Bank, who, to my knowledge, was in some
way or another connected with the Sugar Central was Governor Miguel
Cuaderno.” Aside from appellee, two Central Bank officials who were
also with the Philippine National Bank were Natalio Balboa, who was in
the legal department thereof, and Jose Carmona, who was in the auditing
department. Balboa testified that he knew the article was about
appellee for the following reasons:

“Because, as I said, the first paragraph of the
article it refers to ‘Intriguer’ and I know no other, Mr. Corpus is
referring to ‘intriguer’ to Mr. Cuaderno, because I know that he was
trying to prevail on Mr. Cuaderno to stop the administrative
investigation against Mr. Corpus, when he failed to prevail on Mr.
Cuaderno because the other employees are pressing the complaint and the
complaint was submitted to the Monetary Board, and he made the
conclusion that it was Mr. Cuaderno as the intriguer, that; is the
first part of it. The second part of it is that he was dismissed from
the Philippine National Bank by President Quezon. President Quezon will
not dismiss any official of the Philippine National Bank other than the
President, Vice-President, General Manager, and Assistant Manager. He
would not dismiss the other executive officials or the legal counsel or
others, it must be the Philippine National Bank Board of Directors. The
third of it is that milking a sugar central, there is no other person
connected with the sugar central but Mr. Cuaderno, with the Bataan
Sugar Central. I was connected as Secretary of the Ma-ao Sugar Central
and there was no complaint and we only met once a month, so, all those
there and my opinion was not based on one single item of the article,
it was all those three and the rest of the article may be.”

Appellant pointed particularly to Marquez and Balboa as among the
persons who could identify the Central Bank official he was speaking
of, and both declared that the article referred to appellee.
Furthermore, five days after he gave the press interview, appellant
instituted the present action wherein he accused appellee of having
instigated the administrative charges against him—a fact which
obviously proves that he was speaking of appellee when he made the
derogatory statements complained of.

In view of the evidence just considered, we can apply here the rule in Kunkle vs.
Cablenews-American, 42 Phil. 757, relied upon by appellant, that the
publication of a matter of a defamatory nature in a newspaper, without
naming or accurately describing the person to whom the reprobated acts
are attributed, will not give rise to a civil action for damages at the
instance of a person claiming to be the injured party, unless it
appears that the description of the person referred to in the
defamatory publication was sufficiently clear that at least one third
person would have understood the description as relating to him. Here,
more than one third person identified appellee as the object of the
libel.

Appellee has not appealed from the decision of the lower court and
therefore his prayer that the amount of damages awarded to him be
increased must be denied.

The judgment appealed from is affirmed, with costs against plaintiff-appellant.

Reyes, J.B.L., Barrera, Regala, Bengzon, J.P., Zaldivar, and Sanchez, JJ., concur.