Supt. Venancio Tesoro, warden of the prison farm told reporters Adonis can’t leave jail because he still has a pending case and that he needed to refer to “higher authority.”
Tesoro, however, promised to act on the matter today.
“We pointed out to him that there is already a court order allowing Adonis to post bail,” said Cheryl Fiel, secretary-general of the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines – Davao City chapter.
Judge George Omelio of Regional Trial Court Branch 17 set Adonis' bail at P5,000 which NUJP already paid.
Adonis was convicted to four and a half years in jail on a libel case filed by Davao Cirty Representative, now House Speaker, Prospero Nograles “for a series of commentaries in which he identified the congressman as the man who allegedly ran naked from a Manila hotel after he was caught by his paramour's husband.”
“Although Adonis was granted a discharge on parole in February, he was not released from the Davao Penal Colony (old name of DPPF) because the woman mentioned in the story filed her own libel case against him, citing the same circumstances as Nograles' suit,’” the NUJP said.
The Davao journalists who fetched Adonis were accompanied by lawyer Bibiano Bustamante.
The team arrived at the penal farm at nearly 5 p.m. and was initially told to turn off the video camera.
Adonis, through his counsel Harry Roque, joined the Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility and the NUJP in filing a case before the United Nations High Commission on Human Rights challenging the criminality of the country's libel law. Congress has failed to pass a bill decriminalizing libel. (MindaNews)
