JOURNALISTS, especially those who've been in the trenches long enough, aren't terrified by libel complaints. One columnist brags, "I eat libel cases for breakfast and lunch." (Not dinner, maybe because a bad meal at night gives him a bum stomach.)

Most if not all libel cases are eventually thrown out.

Jurisprudence leans mightily towards the press, bless those who see how other freedoms can be quickly lost without press freedom.

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Few libel complaints prosper: (a) those not defended by the journalist and (b) those that are repetitive and defamatory per se. No journalist gets jailed for libel unless he asks for it, a judge once lectured.

But why do libel cases still wound the press?

Even if the complaint is ultimately junked by a higher court (and such cases abound), the journalist is harassed in time lost and money spent.

And the "chilling effect": The journalist shuns the subject or is gagged under threat of contempt. A news source once sued almost everyone in the newsroom, was rebuffed at the end, but some of those he dragged to court held punches or chose to be silent.

And there's the ordeal from an oppressive rule on venue: One can be dragged to Quezon City for material printed and circulated in Cebu.

Political lords

Harassment is patent and deliberate, the crisis not being eased at all by prosecutors and judges who worry about their careers if they displease political lords.

Prosecutors and judges know they'll be reversed and yet they rule against journalists. And nobody's keeping score how many times they wrongfully give press freedom a beating.

(paseares@yahoo.com)