The Brian Gorrell Story on Media in Focus

Since the Brian Gorrell blog has emerged a couple weeks ago, I tried to steer away from it because of its libelous nature. Obviously, tens of thousands of people are visiting this Australian guy’s blog about his Filipino ex-lover and the $70,000 money the latter owed him that it has gotten him much attention from the press. This evening, we taped the panel discussion at ANC’s Media in Focus discussing the social and legal ramifications of this phenomenon.

Anybody who’s been following his blog knows the scandalous posts and pictures will only attract libel suits. Lawyer’s of the parties involved have made their moves so far, though nothing concrete has been done. Google, the owner of Blogger.com where the BlogSpot blog is being hosted, has been sent a letter of request to take down the blog as well (not sure if it’s a C&D though).

What other bloggers who have been religiously covering this issue is that they might be also accountable about the spread of such libelous acts and can be held liable in Philippine courts. That’s according to Atty. JJ Disini who was also one of the resource speakers of ANC. Even JV Rufino, EIC of Inquirer.net, said he made sure all their articles (9 so far and counting) steer clear of identifying names, linking or publishing URLs.

Here’s what bloggers might be doing that could get them into trouble if they’re covering the issue.

Publicly mentioning names of people being exposed in the blog.
Posting pictures of the people being named by Brian Gorrell in his blog.
Publishing the URL of the blog or linking to the blog.
Quoting a libelous sentence on the blog or re-publishing/summarizing allegations thereof.

The personalities and families of the people being exposed in the blog are desperate to end this and looks like they’re doing everything they can to stop people from talking about it and they will include bloggers too.

Watch Media in Focus on ANC this Thursday to learn more about this issue. We tried real hard not to name names or mention the blog. The only name we can really talk about in the segment was Brian Gorrell himself.

Updated: To those who are unfamiliar with my previous battles with libel cases in the Philippines, please refer to this, this and this. In fact, I still have another one right now in Civil Court.

Please read them first so you’ll know where I’m coming from and how ridiculous our system is.

[tags]brian gorell, brian gorrell blog blogger[/tags]

Abe Olandres

Abe is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of YugaTech with over 20 years of experience in the technology industry. He is one of the pioneers of blogging in the country and considered by many as the Father of Tech Blogging in the Philippines. He is also a technology consultant, a tech columnist with several national publications, resource speaker and mentor/advisor to several start-up companies.

https://www.yugatech.com

87 Comments

Pacute says:

17 years ago

May I know the url of his blog?
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Eugene says:

17 years ago

I really think that the libel/slander law in the Philippines needs to be reviewed. Only the imputation of malice is enough to convict you regardless of whatever you say is true or not.

On a different note, Wikipedia already has a nice article about the controversy. Do a Google search on “brian gorrell wikipedia.” The whole content of the article is sourced and attributed to various articles and websites.
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L.A says:

17 years ago

@Pacute – You can just search teh name of Google, I’m sure it will appear of 1st page…
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lisa says:

17 years ago

What does it mean for Victor Agustin who covered the saga on Cocktales and Manila Standard Today, with names, URL, etc?

http://www.cocktales.com.ph/not-so-gay-parade/

http://www.cocktales.com.ph/hell-hath-no-fury/
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Drew says:

17 years ago

Scare tactics. This stuff is newsworthy. As long as the article doesn’t have malicious intent, the Inquirer can name all the names they want. But I guess their owners and some columnists might get upset, so…
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BrianB says:

17 years ago

Coke, Celine, Coke, Lopez, Delfin, Coke, Montano, DJ, Yap, Tim, Phil star,

Cocaine, philstar, philippine star, celine…

Tinio, Lopez. Gucci, crespo, gang of socialites, manila socialites, cocaine. Montano, epperson.

Is the above libel?
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jhay says:

17 years ago

Heard about it but never really visited the blog. I have better things to do than read about other people’s personal issues. It’s like I could do anything real about it.

It’s just sad that it had to be like this.
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noemi says:

17 years ago

Yes I know that blogging about the names/people mentioned are libelous that’s why I never blogged about it. I know others tackled the legal issues involved which is good.

even the anonymous commenters are liable if they made slanderous comments. They think they are anonymous. Wait till there is a court order requesting for those IP numbers.

Who knows the parties involved will spring a surprise?
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__ says:

17 years ago

@ BrianB

I’ll let you judge for yourself. For one to be called libel, there must be: defamation, publication, identification of person defamed, and malicious imputation.

:)
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asdix says:

17 years ago

how can the truth become libelous? lol
i think, it’d only be “slander” if and only if the author, publicly maligns the subject using false accusations, in gorell’s case. He had all the proof he could ever want.
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