The News UpFront: (TOP STORY) as of Friday, February 25, 2011 

A supposedly "private citizen" by the name of Melinda Rustia goes bonkers at the sight of her picture in a newsvideo at YouTube. So she goes to a lawyer, and expectedly, the lawyer demands its removal and threatens legal action if not complied with. The lawyer claims the caption "And kibitzer Melinda Rustia, what's her motive in passing gossips against this reporter?" was "injurious" and "damaging" to her as it is, the lawyer claims, "false and defamatory". She could see and feel the hurt to her but not to me and two other journalists -- Bobby Reyes in Los Angeles, and Joseph Lariosa in Chicago, Illinois, when she spread gossips and rumors to her friends. Do we just clam up just because she said so? The practice of investigative journalism entails risks and Melinda Rustia's action threatening a lawsuit is just one of them. Here's the full story.

COLLATERAL DAMAGE OF THE PROXY WARS?

Toronto Community Fixture Threatens Lawsuit

Against The Filipino Web Channel and its Reporter

By ROMEO P. MARQUEZ

Member, Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE)

and Asian-American Journalists Association (AAJA)

T ORONTO  -  "And kibitzer Melinda Rustia, what's her motive in passing gossips against this reporter?"

That line in a newsvideo on my YouTube channel has triggered a threat of a lawsuit from no less than the person herself, Melinda Rustia, through a lawyer, Ian A. McLaine, a Toronto barrister and solicitor.

I've never heard of this Melinda Rustia or what she does in the Filipino community. The very first time I saw her name was when she signed up as a subscriber in one of my online channels.

For months since I started doing videos in June last year to complement my news blogs, her screen name was there. This month, however, she promptly removed her name the moment my video "War for the Pockets - Toronto's Filipino Community in Turmoil" hit the airwaves. (To view, click the link: )

Quite obviously, she did not like the idea of her image appearing there with the inscription "And kibitzer Melinda Rustia, what's her motive in passing gossips against this reporter?".

What I called "gossips" are the many unfounded allegations contained in e-mails and chatmails that were sent out a few years ago when some members of the Filipino community in San Diego, California, were fulminating against a series of investigative articles that I wrote exposing corruption in community organizations.

For example, the $27,000 that went missing from the coffers of the Council of Philippine American Organizations (COPAO) and the payoffs into the hundreds of thousand dollars in the National Federation of Filipino American Associations (NaFFAA) based in Washington, DC.

Most of the articles that Melinda Rustia spread had been consistently denied and rebutted by myself and another journalist in Los Angeles, Bobby Reyes even if we found out that its anonymous author was a shameless, gutless lapdog let loose by our arch enemies.

Not being a journalist -- though I am told she's one of the co-founders of Philippine Press Club Ontario, which is primarily a social and networking group -- Melinda Rustia never checked whether the information alleged in the questionable e-mails were accurate or not.

She admits harvesting from the treasure-trove of information that is Google and gleefully mass-emailed them anyway, thus making her complicit in spreading gossips.

In emails she sent to her friends, notably to Rory Elefano (aelefano@_), Tess Cusipag (balita@_), Paul de la Cruz (razorcutz007@_) and Philippine Independence Day Council (pidctoronto@gmail.com), Melinda Rustia claimed, and I quote her: "I don't know anything about Romy Marquez until I received the Breaking News yesterday from Rory . . . " (The Breaking News she referred to can be viewed at: http://currentsbreakingnews.blogspot.com/).

She continued: " so, I Googled him and here is a compilation of interesting and hilarious comments about him. Some are personal and below the belt . . . "

I don't know what to make of her -- a liar, cheat or simply a dishonest person? Not that it mattered to me, but Melinda Rustia had fairly good knowledge about me when she subscribed to one of my channels. And that belies her claim of not knowing me or what I do.

W hy would Melinda Rustia compile and then pass on comments which she already had adjudged as "personal and below the belt"? Since she has not checked the veracity of those comments, did she not spread rumors calculated to ruin my credibility as a journalist?

Of the entries about me in Google and other search engines, Melinda Rustia zeroed in on the most despicable lies there. Maybe because, by her own admission, "NAKAKATAWA TALAGA!" (sic), meaning those were the items that made fun of me.

My impression was that she was being fed with the wrong and distorted information by my detractors in San Diego, California, where I had exposed the crooks, scam artists and thieves who lorded it over the Filipino community.

For 16 years in San Diego, and many years before that in Manila and elsewhere where I had worked as a foreign correspondent, I had been threatened with violence, robbed, intimidated, bullied and sued many times over. But I am not one to cringe in fear or crack so easily for as long as I hold the truth.

Now that I've published her picture in my video, Melinda Rustia suddenly became a "private citizen" taking umbrage at my reporting. Did I hit it right that she's spreading rumors?

I'm not going to allow anyone, much less a Melinda Rustia and her cohorts, to drag me down her seeming fondness for the gutter. I'd let her and her friends bust their lungs in laughter and fart, but I'm not fair game for your moments of mirth. If it's dirt you want, it's dirt you'd get.

I'm quite surprised that Melinda Rustia has enlisted the services of a lawyer to demand that I remove her picture from my video. What's the lawyer for, to intimidate me?

Ian McLaine claims the caption "And kibitzer Melinda Rustia, what's her motive in passing gossips against this reporter?" is "personally injurious" to her and "damaging to her reputation". It is "false and defamatory," he says.

" x x x Mrs. Rustia x x x is an upstanding member of the Toronto Filipino community who is active in charitable causes benefiting that community", explains her lawyer. Well, that I'll have to find out.

Invoking her being a "private citizen", McLaine also raised the issue about her picture being published in the video without her consent. Yet her picture is all over the Internet. One example is the one attached to this story.

"Accordingly, we demand that you immediately remove all images of and references to Mrs. Rustia from 'The Filipino Web Channel', the 'Currents & Breaking News' blog and any other publication, online or otherwise x x x " the lawyer wrote.

"Further, we demand that you immediately cease and desist from the publication of any further statements or images associated with or otherwise concerning Mrs. Rustia," McLaine further wrote.

McLaine demanded compliance by 5 p.m. Eastern Standard Time on Feb. 25, 2011 or else "we will have no choice but to initiate legal proceedings seeking monetary damages along with any other remedies to which Ms. (sic) Rustia is entitled." # # #

(© Copyright by Romeo P. Marquez, Editor, Philippine Village Voice, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. E-mail: TheFilipinoWebChannel@gmail.com, PhilVoiceNews@aol.com or CurrentsBreakingNews@gmail.com).

My news channels can be viewed by clicking the links:

At Vimeo:

1. http://vimeo.com/16962555

2. http://vimeo.com/user4144767

For other stories, please visit: 

1. http://currentsbreakingnews.blogspot.com/ 

2. http://torontonewsroom.blogspot.com/

3. http://timecircumstance.blogspot.com/

4. http://travelsthemes.blogspot.com/ 

5. http://gotchajournalist.blogspot.com/ .