Singer Yeng Constantino posts bail for cyberlibel charge

Yeng Constantino

CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY, Misamis Oriental, Philippines — Singer Yeng Constantino (Josephine Constantino-Asuncion in real life) has posted bail for cyberlibel charges stemming from Instagram and YouTube posts that supposedly defamed the head of the district hospital in the resort island of Siargao in Surigao del Norte.

Constantino’s lawyer Joji Alonso said they posted on Jan. 10 a bail bond of P30,000 after they learned that the Regional Trial Court of Dapa in Surigao del Norte had issued a warrant for the singer-composer’s arrest on Dec. 12, 2019.

Alonso declined to comment on the case, explaining that they never received a copy of the complaint and learned only of the case when Surigao del Norte Rep. Francisco Jose Matugas II posted copies of the court documents on Facebook.

The cyberlibel charge against Constantino, docketed as Criminal Case No. 19-171, stemmed from her posts on Instagram and YouTube that recounted a “traumatic experience”after her husband, Yan Asunsion, was injured in an accident while they were on vacation in Siargao last July.

Constantino complained that it took a long time for personnel at the Siargao District Hospital to perform some medical procedures on Asuncion and the apparently distraught Constantino blamed the hospital’s chief, Dr. Esterlina Tan, and called her “an insensitive and uncaring public servant.”

But other physicians and even the Philippine Medical Association (PMA) attested that Tan did not commit any medical mistake and even performed a procedure that was beyond the treatment protocol for head trauma.

The PMA even issued a statement saying Constantino’s internet posts unnecessarily shamed Tan who even performed extra procedures to ensure that Asuncion did not have intra-cerebral hemorrhage.—Reports from Ryan Rosauro, Erwin Mascariñas and Allan Policarpio