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By James Konstantin Galvez, Reporter
Nearly two months after the November 29 standoff
at the Manila Peninsula Hotel, arrested media practitioners are set
to file today a multimillion-peso class suit against government
officials before the Makati Regional Trial Court (RTC).
This develops as some senators, notably Sen.
Loren Legarda, cautioned the police to stop harassing the media
and floating unsubstantiated charges against journalists.
In an interview, lawyer Harry Roque, a human
rights lawyer and a law professor of the University of the
Philippines (UP), said journalists and media supporters decided to
file the class suit after several meetings attended by print and
broadcast journalists and repre-sentatives from the National Union
of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP) and the Center for Media
Freedom and Responsibility.
Roque added that the class suit will send a
message that Filipino journalists will fight to assert their
constitutionally mandated rights.
“The filing of the class suit is important
because it sends the message to those who want to trample on our
constitutional rights that members of the media are determined to
fight for their rights and for the Constitution,” Roque said.
The respondents in the class suit were Interior
Secretary Ronaldo Puno, Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez, Philippine
National Police (PNP) Director Gen. Avelino Razon, Metro Manila
police chief, Chief Geary Barias, Southern Police District, Director
Luizo Ticman, PNP-Special Action Force Commander Chief Supt.
Leocadio Santiago and PNP-Criminal Investigation and Detection
Group-National Capital Region director Senior Supt. Asher Dolina.
Roque added that besides the class suit, the
group would also ask the Makati Court to issue an injunction to
prevent the respondents from “infringing on the press”
especially when faced with similar incidents.
Some 50 journalists covering the standoff were
rounded up and “processed” at the National Capital Region Police
Office (NCRPO) headquarters at Camp Bagong Diwa in Taguig. They were
released hours after their roundup.
Authorities said the arrest was done to separate
and identify legitimate media practitioners from members of the
Magdaló group who they alleged were faking media identity to
escape.
Journalists, however, continue to decry what
they perceive to be the police’s continuing harassment of the
working press.
Three women journalists were reportedly being
accused by the police of having aided the escape of fugitive Marine
Capt. Nicanor Faeldon after the standoff.
The latest was Dana Batnag, correspondent of
Jiji Press, a Japanese news wire service operating in the
Philippines. Police showed a video footage showing Batnag talking
with Faeldon during the standoff.
Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez agreed with
critics that the Batnag-Faeldon conversation done in the presence of
other journalists, soldiers staking out, and civilians who joined
them in Manila Peninsula as recorded on video cannot be the basis of
the police accusation.
After reports came out on alleged media aid to
Faeldon’s escape linking the three, police later said that it
still cannot ascertain the identity of the mediawoman who assisted
in Faeldon’s escape.
The police, however, assured that the person who
aided Faeldon was a woman.
Faeldon had also eluded arrest in 2005. He had
been in hiding from fellow state security forces since the Oakwood
mutiny staged in 2003.
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