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By Frank Lloyd Tiongson, Correspondent
Media practitioners and advocates of press
freedom may not take the pronouncements of Justice Secretary Raul
Gonzalez against press freedom sitting down.
In a consultation forum held at the University
of the Philippines College of Mass Communication in Diliman, Quezon
City on Monday, media practitioners, luminaries, and lawyers
consolidated legal opinions on a possible class suit against
government security agencies. Respondents would also include
officials of the Department of Justice, and the Interior and Local
Government.
The forum served to address an earlier
proclamation of Gonzalez which threathened to arrest journalists
covering police or military operations similar to the November 29
Manila Peninsula siege.
Earlier, 11 members of the ABS-CBN news and
current affairs division filed a petition before to the Supreme
Court evoking the writ of amparo to stop the police from threatening
to arrest journalists covering coups and other similar crisis
situations.
The petitioners, led by Ces Drilon, also urged
the High Court to declare their arrest on November 29, right after
the siege ended, as illegal.
Lawyer Jose Manuel Diokno, speaking in the UP
forum, indicated that a myriad of threats have recently hounded
media personnel. Among them, he said, constituted criminal arrests
and public denunciation.
Gonzalez has also been under fire for dismissing
foreign correspondents as “parachute journalists” and lambasting
news networks as a “hotbed of military rebels.”
Diokno also suggested that the government has
clearly been using the “strong arm of the law for vindictive and
arbitrary purposes.”
Drawing the line
ABS-CBN news and current affairs division head
Maria Ressa said in the forum that journalists must not allow the
government to gradually “draw the line” on the legal
responsibilities of the media.
UP Law professor Harry Roque, on the other hand,
reminded large news networks not to sideline issues of press freedom
to skirmishes on ratings. He suggested to the media to consolidate
their efforts on a concerted legal case against the threats from
Gonzalez.
Roque declined to reveal the full details of
possible legal strategies to be undertaken by the journalists
present in the forum.
He maintained, however, that pushing for freedom
of the press comes hand in hand with the right of the people to
information. He also stressed that the fight should not be confined
to media practitioners, but should also involve ordinary citizens.
Also present in the forum were large media
organizations such as the National Union of Journalists of the
Philippines, Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility, and the
Philippine Press Institute.
Pangilinan hails
courage of press
Senate Majority Leader Francis Pangilinan on
Tuesday praised media for its standing up against intrusion from
authorities, particularly the filing of an amparo case before the
High Court.
“We must do everything to ensure that the
rights to free speech and of the press are not so lightly trampled
upon by the executive department,” Pangilinan said.
In November, Pangilinan urged media to file a
case before the High Court to get a definite ruling on apparent
threats to the media. “The courts must step in to prevent a repeat
of the [Peninsula] incident,” he said.
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