Veteran Filipino journalist Philip Lustre arrested for alleged cyberlibel

Veteran Filipino journalist Philip Lustre Jr. was arrested by police officers on Saturday morning over an alleged cyberlibel complaint issued by a Davao City court.

Lustre attended the regularly conducted Saturday News Forum at Dapo Restaurant on Scout Borromeo Street, Quezon City, on 24 October, where personnel from the Quezon City Police District's Kamuning Police Station 10 arrived several minutes after the forum to arrest him.

“Ilalaban ko ito, hindi ko uurungan ito,” he told media reporters following his arrest.

(I will fight this, and I will not back down.)

The longtime journalist said he was unaware of the article he had written that may have prompted the filing of a cyberlibel complaint against him, as well as the identity of the person who filed the complaint.

“Hindi ko alam kung sino ang complainant, [taga] Davao City raw ang complainant,” he told reporters following his arrest.

“Hindi rin, nothing anyway. Eh, may pikon eh,” Lustre responded when asked by the media if he was aware that a complaint had been filed against him.

(I do not know who the complainant is. They said the complainant is from Davao City. Neither, nothing anyway. Well, someone is offended.)

The arrest was conducted by the Kamuning Police Station Warrant Section in coordination with the QCPD Anti-Cybercrime Team and the Cyber Patroller and Tracker Team.

The Warrant of Arrest was issued by Branch 10, Regional Trial Court, Davao City.

The QCPD reported that the accused remains under police custody pending the appropriate court proceedings.

"The issuing court will be notified of the arrest, and the warrant will be returned in accordance with established procedures," the city police district said.

Lustre recently published a book entitled Kill, Kill, Kill: Extrajudicial Killings in the Philippines Crimes Against Humanity v. Rodrigo Duterte Et. Al., whose first edition was published in September 2023 and second edition in November 2025.

The second edition contains 18 chapters, beginning with Chapter 1, “War on Drugs,” and ending with Chapter 18, “Concluding Remarks.” It highlights the “bloody, chaotic, and uncontrolled but ill-fated war on drugs which the government of Rodrigo Duterte launched at the start of his six-year term as president in 2016,” as stated in the book's preface.

Decades in Journalism

According to the author's biography in his book Kill, Kill, Kill, Lustre is a book writer, journalist, essayist, and teacher with more than 50 years of experience in journalism.

The journalist previously worked for various newspapers and publications, including the Philippine Free Press, and edited the defunct Manila News Features and Commentaries and Piliposopong Tasyo news magazine.

Lustre also wrote a regular thrice-weekly Filipino column for the Police Files Tonite tabloid and contributed to Aksyon Pinoy, an online newspaper for overseas Filipino workers (OFWs).

“Ba Ipe,” his pen name, was born in 1954 in a town in Rizal and raised in Tondo, Manila.

Lustre completed his education at Holy Child Catholic School in Tondo, the University of Santo Tomas (UST) Education High School, and the University of the East, where he earned an AB degree majoring in Sociology.

He took pride with his coverage on the economic collapses during the Marcos dictatorship and the restoration of democracy following the 1986 EDSA People Power Revolution.

The liberal democracy advocate has written two books, Kill, Kill, Kill and BUMPS: Fifty Years of Dictatorship and Democracy in the Philippines (1972–2022).