The cases against two men linked to the takeover of what used to be an official Cebu City Government Facebook page have been dismissed for lack of evidence after the complainant withdrew her charge with the change of leadership at City Hall, this writer has learned.

The dismissal underscores the continued lack of regulations on the handling of social media pages of local government units. Cebu City Mayor Raymond Alvin Garcia said he will be looking into putting regulations in place for Cebu City Government social media accounts. He said the turnover of social media access credentials will be included as part of the accountability process of employees and officials when they leave City Hall.

Cebu City Hall, under dismissed mayor Michael Rama, pursued the people behind Cebu Updates, which they said used to be the official Facebook page of the Cebu City Public Information Office (PIO). The Facebook page’s transparency information indicated that Cebu Updates was for a long time used as the official page of the Cebu City PIO. It also still carries what used to be official posts of the Cebu City PIO.

The complaints for illegal access and identity theft under the Cybercrime Prevention Act were filed against Erwin dela Cerna and Christian Tura by Estela Grace Rosit on February 5, 2024. Rosit was the head of the Cebu City PIO when she filed the cases. She is currently a staff at the PIO. She told this writer she was misled by lawyer Collin Rosell in filing the case. She said she was told she would just be a witness but was surprised on the way to the filing in court that she was the complainant.

Rosell, in an interview last November 8, 2024 before he was arrested at the Cebu City Hall for usurpation of authority, denied that he misled Rosit.

A check at the sala of Regional Trial Court (RTC) Judge Ramon B. Daomilas Jr. showed that the consolidated cases were dismissed on August 1, 2024 for lack of sufficient evidence after Rosit’s recantation.

Rosell told this writer they would contest the dismissal. When asked about the issue after his press conference on October 31 and before it was confirmed that the cases had already been dismissed, Rama told Rosell to intervene and stop the withdrawal of the cases.

Lawyer Floro Casas, Jr., a former Cebu City Administrator and one of the page admins of Cebu Updates, scoffed at Rosell’s statement saying the dismissal was already final. Casas told this writer that while he supports Garcia and his running mate lawyer Jose “Joey” Daluz, III, he wants Cebu Updates to be an independent media platform for anything that involves Cebu. I interviewed Casas in the office of Garcia, at the sidelines of the latter’s press conference last November 8.

As of November 14, 2024, Cebu Updates had 241,000 likes and 340,000 followers. It has a bigger community than the current official Cebu City PIO page, which has 44,000 likes and 91,000 followers.

Cebu Updates has for several times posted exclusive news updates involving Cebu City Hall under Rama. Last week, it put the Rama Baena Tan and Ang Law Offices (RBTA Law) in the defensive when Cebu Updates raised accusations involving P205 million in donations for the building of the Cebu City Medical Center.

Rosit told the court she lacked authority from the Cebu City Government to file the cases because there was no resolution from the City Council authorizing the filing of the cases.

In the interview with Rappler, Rosit questioned why the burden of recovering a City Hall Facebook page was put on the shoulders of someone like her, who was new to her post at the time of filing. She said the Cebu City Government should have led the efforts to recover the page. She said she decided to withdraw her complaint because she did not want to be the cause of legal problems for dela Cerna and Tura, whom she said she did not know.

Rosit also told the court that her withdrawal of the charge is also in line with the “policy of diplomacy” under the leadership of Garcia.