Saverinus Suryanto was shocked to receive a summons for examination from the West Manggarai Resort Police, East Nusa Tenggara (NTT) on Friday, May 19, 2023. Rio - his nickname - was charged with Article 27 paragraph 3 of the Electronic Information and Transaction Law (ITE) for allegedly defaming people through social media. “I was reported by the regent himself,” said Rio, referring to the Regent of West Manggarai, Edistasius Endi, when contacted by telephone, Thursday, October 5, 2023.

The reporting against Rio stems from his status on Facebook. At that time, Rio wrote “ASEAN Summit VS alleged embezzlement of certificates of ownership of 200 heads of local transmigrant families of Labuan Bajo,” after reading an Instagram status belonging to the West Nusa Tenggara (NTT) Youth Union criticizing the summit of Southeast Asian countries. Rio considers the resolution of the embezzlement case of hundreds of local transmigrants to be far more important than the ASEAN Summit. “I posted it as a form of criticism of the regent's performance,” Rio said.

To date, Rio has been questioned twice by the police. The first examination was conducted on July 13. While the second took place only 13 days later or July 27, 2023. During the examination, Rio has repeatedly stated the intention of criticizing on social media. It never occurred to him to defame the regent, let alone have a personal grudge against Regent Edistasius. However, investigators at the Directorate of Certain Crimes were unmoved. According to Rio, the investigators did not include his complete statement in the investigation report (BAP). Not long after, the police actually raised the status of the case in a case title conducted on Wednesday, August 30, 2023. “After that, he was named a suspect,” he said.

The case revealed by Rio on Facebook actually took place towards the end of the 1990s. Starting with the transmigration program, the government moved residents of Ruteng, Flores, East Nusa Tenggara to Komodo District, Labuan Bajo in 1997. At that time, around 200 families were promised land and houses. The total land to be given to farmers was 2 hectares, including the one promised to Rio's family. “The government at that time promised three plots of land. The first was 0.5 hectares of yard and house land. 1 hectare of business land or 0.5 hectares of dry land, and 1 hectare of wet land,” explained Rio, who moved to Labuan Bajo with his parents when he was in the fourth grade of elementary school.

Of that amount, said Rio, only house and yard certificates were received by transmigrants. Meanwhile, wetlands that are projected for agriculture have not been received at all. Even though this land is very much needed by farmers, like his family. “That is what we are fighting for. The government did not distribute the SHM to us. That's why we can't control the land because we don't know where the land is,” he said passionately.