{"id":225786,"date":"2019-08-05T19:58:03","date_gmt":"2019-08-05T23:58:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=225786"},"modified":"2019-08-05T19:58:03","modified_gmt":"2019-08-05T23:58:03","slug":"palace-hands-off-medialdea-tulfo-feud","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2019\/08\/05\/palace-hands-off-medialdea-tulfo-feud\/","title":{"rendered":"Palace hands off Medialdea-Tulfo feud"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Presidential Spokesperson and Chief Presidential Legal Counsel Salvador Panelo deferred commenting on the issue describing it as a \u201cpersonal\u201d feud between the two presidential appointees noting that charges have already been filed. (File photo<\/a>: Office of the Presidential Spokesperson\/Facebook<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

MANILA<\/strong>\u00a0— Malaca\u00f1ang is keeping its hands off Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea\u2019s libel complaint against Special Envoy for Public Diplomacy to China and columnist Ramon Tulfo.<\/p>\n

Presidential Spokesperson and Chief Presidential Legal Counsel Salvador Panelo deferred commenting on the issue describing it as a \u201cpersonal\u201d feud between the two presidential appointees noting that charges have already been filed.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s between the Executive Secretary and the journalist. That is personal between the two, so we will not interfere,\u201d Panelo said in a Palace briefing on Monday.<\/p>\n

\u201cSince charges have been filed, we cannot comment on the validity of the charges. So, we will wait,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

The issue stemmed from a July 25 column in The Manila Times in which Tulfo accused Medialdea of sitting on an appeal by Felicito Mejorado for the claim of millions worth of reward money.<\/p>\n

Mejorado had supposedly given the tip on a smuggling operation in Mariveles, Bataan in 1997.<\/p>\n

Tulfo also accused Medialdea of asking for money for the release of the tip through a certain Vianney D. Garol.<\/p>\n

Medialdea has denied the allegations saying the appeal has not been pending with the Office of the President (OP) for a year but only for three months. The OP received the appeal on April 5, 2019.<\/p>\n

Medialdea said the OP has already acted on the appeal and has asked the Department of Finance, which had initially denied Mejorada’s claim, to forward all records of the case.<\/p>\n

The National Bureau of Investigation has also been asked \u201cto verify the involvement” of Garol and other personalities.<\/p>\n

Medialdea said he never knew Garol. He noted that based on Malaca\u00f1ang Records Office, Garol was appointed as project development officer II under the Office of External Affairs-Davao on August 1, 2005 but stopped operations on December 31, 2005.<\/p>\n

He said the second libel complaint against Tulfo will be filed next week.<\/p>\n

Medialdea first filed a libel complaint against Tulfo after the columnist accused him of being Sandra Cam’s “benefactor.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MANILA\u00a0— Malaca\u00f1ang is keeping its hands off Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea\u2019s libel complaint against Special Envoy for Public Diplomacy to …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":222653,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1145,16,95],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-225786","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headline","category-news","category-news-ph","mauthors-azer-parrocha","mauthors-philippine-news-agency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225786","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=225786"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225786\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":225790,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225786\/revisions\/225790"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/222653"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=225786"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=225786"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=225786"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}