This is the latest material i crawled in the internet by Cory Martinez and it seems worth reading for those people whom been following this issue.  By the way, this reading material was posted last February 5, 2008.

Here goes - - -

THE GMA-7 Network Inc. and the ABS-CBN Broadcasting Corporation yesterday junked the request of the Quezon City Regional Trial Court to amicably settle the  petition for a  temporary restraining order so that they can    move on to issues on the main complaint of P15-million damage suit against the ABS-CBN.

Before the start of the resumption of the hearing for TRO, Branch 95 Judge Henri Jean Paul Inting asked both parties if there is a possibility for them to just amicably settle the  issue.

Inting has given GMA-7 legal counsel, Gener Asuncion and ABS-CBN legal counsel, Regis Puno time to confer about the court’s request but did not arrive at any compromise.

Puno said that he and  Asuncion both agreed that they could ask their principals to stop the plugs and corporate communications but they could not agree on the issue to stop any legitimate stories regarding the controversies.

Atty. Asuncion, on the other hand, said that if they agreed for the amicable settlement,  GMA would voluntarily stop  from issuing statements regarding the issues.

After the possible settlement bogged down, the court resumed the hearing with the presentation of ABS-CBN’s witness, Johnny Aliguin, allegedly a former researcher of GMA TV 6 Iloilo, who earlier testified that he was hired in order to conduct survey and locate the AGB meters in Iloilo.

During the cross-examination conducted by  Asuncion, Aliguin admitted that he has no contract with GMA TV 6 and was not issued an identification card when he was allegedly hired by its station manager, Johnny Cabillon in May. 2006.

Aliguin further testified that he received P6,200 a month as his salary and being delivered to him personally by Cabillon in a restaurant in Bacolod City.

When asked by the court if he knew that what was instructed to him by Cabillon was wrong, Aliguin admitted  that he accepted the job since he needed money.

The testimony of Aliguin was already terminated and the ABS-CBN will still present three other witnesses during the resumption of the hearing today.

The GMA 7 filed the motion asking the court to order  ABS-CBN to stop from repeating and airing over its radio and television network the defamatory statements which depict  GMA 7 as the manipulator or the cause of manipulation of ratings in Bacolod City, Cebu,Davao and Iloilo.

The  defamatory statements against the GMA 7 were aired on various TV programs of ABS-CBN on January 5, 6, 7 and 12 using an additional medium, convenient witnesses which it procured, pointing at GMA as persistently manipulating TV ratings in the cities of Cebu, Davao and Iloilo.