DOJ indicts Rodel Jayme for inciting to sedition

The Department of Justice has indicted the creator of the website that was allegedly used to share videos that tagged members of the First Family in the illegal drug trade.

In a resolution seen Monday, state prosecutors found probable cause to charge 27-year-old webmaster Rodel Jayme in court for inciting to sedition, in relation to Section 6 of the anti-cybercrime law.

The case will be filed on Tuesday at the Parañaque Regional Trial Court, said Senior Assistant State Prosecutor Anna Noreen Devanadera, one of the inquest prosecutors.

Conviction of inciting to sedition in relation to cybercrime is punishable by imprisonment of six years and one day to 12 years, among other penalties, according to the Department of Justice.

Jayme was arrested last April 30 after the National Bureau of Investigation’s forensic analysis of his electronic devices supposedly showed he was the owner of the Metro Balita website, which was used to share the “Ang Totoong Narcolist” video series.

The NBI said it based its complaint on messages between Jayme and a certain “Maru Nguyen” and “Maru Xie” that were “related to the metrobalita.net website and the Bikoy video series.”

The NBI said the retrieved conversations show a “continuity” of efforts to “conduct scurrilous libelous attacks against the government.”

In its resolution, the DOJ ordered the NBI Cybercrime Division to further investigate Nguyen/Xie on his/her alleged participation in the commission of the offense and file the appropriate complaint against them if warranted.

Jayme earlier said he was only hired to create a website that he was led to believe would only be used to post the achievements of 2016 election candidates Nguyen had backed.

He has denied involvement in the production or uploading of the “Bikoy” videos. He said he will cooperate with authorities in identifying the personalities behind the videos. 

On Monday, a man named Peter Joemel Advincula, who claims to be Bikoy, the hooded man who made the allegations in the videos, surfaced at the Integrated Bar of the Philippines. 

In surfacing, Advincula stood by all his claims against people close to President Rodrigo Duterte, which have since been denied.

‘Not an exercise of free speech’

In their resolution, the DOJ prosecutors said Jayme's creation of the website and subsequent posting of the videos, which contain drug allegations against the First Family, including the President’s minor daughter, “is not an exercise of his freedom of speech and expression.”

Instead, it was a “clear act to arouse among its viewers a sense of dissatisfaction against the duly constituted authorities,” the prosecutors wrote.

“It is a known fact that President Duterte has declared an all-out war against drugs and a video containing these allegations cannot but be interpreted as a scheme to waken the confidence of the people in the government,” they said.

“These acts are against public peace and are criminal in nature as they tend to incite to a breach of the peace and are conducive to the destruction of the very government itself.”

They explained that the media’s picking up of the videos “widens that tendency to produce dissatisfaction or a feeling incompatible with the disposition to remain loyal to the government.”

Validity of arrest

Apart from indicting Jayme, the DOJ also upheld the validity of his arrest.

The prosecutors said the NBI “undoubtedly had probable cause” to arrest Jayme because it already had a court-issued search warrant against him, as well as personal knowledge of the fact that he has been “committing an offense” through the “libelous articles posted on social media against certain government personalities.”

They said the NBI had grounds to validly arrest Jayme without a warrant because the bureau had already traced Jayme’s identity, found him present during the implementation of the search warrant, and confirmed he had access to the Metro Balita website and “had knowledge of the ‘Bikoy’ videos.”

The DOJ added that Jayme “neither denied nor submitted evidence to refute his identity.”

It also explained that the warrantless arrest was justified because an “offense is still being committed” at the time the search warrant was implemented, saying that “the libelous videos and articles were still circulating online and excerpts of the videos were still being shown on television or heard over the radio. — RSJ, GMA News