Lokalpedia founder John Sherwin Felix challenges a cyberlibel case filed against him over his critique of a government-funded book on regional cuisine. The case, his supporters argue, violates freedom of expression.
WHEN John Sherwin Felix first received a copy of Kayumanggi: A Kaleidoscope of Filipino Flavors and Food Traditions, he was excited. Here was a government-published book devoted to Philippine culinary heritage — the kind of documentation work he had spent years doing himself through his research project, Lokalpedia.
That excitement did not last long.
Within the pages of the Department of Trade and Industry publication, Felix found what he called “grave errors” — misattributed ingredients, distorted histories, missing techniques. He did what any researcher committed to the record would do: he wrote it all down and posted it publicly. Months later, he was served a subpoena.
Felix is now fighting cyberlibel charges filed against him by chef and author Jam Melchor, one of the book’s contributors. On March 10, 2026, accompanied by his lawyer and members of the food advocacy group Gulay Na!, he filed his counter-affidavit. The case has since become a flashpoint in a much larger argument about who gets to correct the official story, and at what cost.
Reached by Rights Report Philippines for comment, Felix said, when asked how is he holding up: “I can’t say 100% okay because my livelihood and fieldwork was severely affected because of this legal case. But thanks to advocacy groups , lawyers, and locals from different parts of Philippines, I am okay and I know I did the right thing.” He said when he criticized the book, he only wanted people “to be vigilant and critical.”
At the press conference following the counter-affidavit filing, Felix’s lawyer, Atty. Man Hernando, framed the legal challenge plainly: filing a criminal complaint against someone for criticizing a government agency’s publication is a violation of freedom of expression, full stop.
The law being used against Felix is Republic Act 10175, the Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012. Online libel under that law carries a prison term of up to 12 years, a dramatically harsher penalty than libel committed in print. Among the more prominent cyberlibel case is the one against Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Ressa and her colleague Rey Santos Jr. at Rappler.
Legal advocates and press freedom organizations have long warned that this gap is not incidental. It creates a chilling effect. When a social media post can mean years of imprisonment and an open-ended legal battle, many people will calculate that silence is safer.
The UN Human Rights Committee has repeatedly called on the Philippines to decriminalize libel entirely, holding that criminal defamation laws are fundamentally incompatible with the right to free expression under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, a treaty the Philippines has signed. “I hope it will be decriminalized,” Felix said.
The book was published under the DTI’s Malikhaing Pinoy Program, and Felix received his copy in September 2025. His critique, posted on the Lokalpedia Facebook page, was detailed and documented. He pointed out, for instance, that on page 136, the book attributes the yellowish-orange color of kare-kare to peanuts or peanut butter. Anyone who has cooked the dish traditionally knows that color comes from atsuete or annatto seeds. It is not a minor distinction.
He raised similar concerns about pancit batil patong, the beloved signature dish of Tuguegarao. The DTI book lists pork, chicken, and tomatoes as its main ingredients. Felix cited Pancit 101 and historical research by Jan Karl Coballes of the Cagayan Museum, both of which identify carabeef as the essential protein. Tomatoes, the research indicates, were never part of the dish’s lineage at all.
The errors extended further. In recipes for kulawong talong, piaparan a anok, humba, KBL (kadyos, baboy, langka), and tiyula itum, Felix found that the book had dropped the very techniques that define these dishes — the smoking of coconut meat for kulawo, the use of sunog lahing, or burnt coconut, in tiyula itum. These are not decorative details. They are what the food is. The book also described tawilis as a fish “commonly found in lakes and rivers.” Felix cited IUCN data: tawilis is endemic to Taal Lake alone.
He said he tried first to raise these concerns privately, reaching out to the DTI and to the author to give them a chance to correct the record. He heard nothing back. The subpoena, arriving in February 2026, was his first indication that anything legal was in motion.
Biodiversity advocates Celine and Dennis Murillo, who also attended the press conference, said the case was a reminder that documentarists and storytellers must be free to hold institutions to the highest standards. That freedom, they argued, is not a privilege — it is the condition under which honest cultural work becomes possible at all.
The case has drawn significant support online, with many rallying around Felix as a symbol of what independent researchers risk when they take documentation seriously. He and his supporters are currently raising funds to cover the mounting legal costs of defending a post that was, at its core, a researcher doing exactly what researchers are supposed to do: checking the record and telling the truth about what they found. (Rights Report Philippines)