Makati courts junk media case on Manila Pen arrests
By Thea Alberto
INQUIRER.net
First Posted 19:01:00 06/27/2008
Filed Under: Manila Hostage Drama, Media
MANILA, Philippines -- (UPDATE) A Makati City trial court has dismissed the charges filed by journalists and media organizations against government officials over the arrests of media workers during the takeover by rebel soldiers of the Manila Peninsula Hotel on November 29 last year.
In a five-page decision, Judge Reynaldo Laigo of Makati Regional Trial Court Branch 56 dismissed the class suit against Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jr., Justice Secretary Raul Gonzales, Philippine National Police Director General Avelino Razon Jr., National Capital Region Police Office Director Geary Barias, among others, for alleged violation of press freedom for the Manila Peninsula arrests and Gonzales' subsequent statement that journalists would be arrested should similar circumstances occur.
The decision said the defendants were able to justify their decision to arrest the journalists who refused to heed the 3 p.m. deadline set by Barias, the ground commander at the time, to leave the hotel.
It also noted nothing was wrong in Gonzales' warning.
"Upon thorough examination of the afore-quoted allegations of the complaint, the Court finds that the same do not constitute sufficient cause of action for damages against the defendants that warrants further prosecution of the instant case," the decision said.
"To begin with, the right of the plaintiffs as members of the press as guaranteed under the Constitution was not violated and trampled upon by the respective acts of the defendants complained of," it added.
But lawyer Harry Roque, the plaintiffs’ legal counsel, said they would appeal the case in higher court, claiming there were no grounds to dismiss the case because it had yet to go on trial.
"Definitely, we will appeal. In the first place there was no trial on the merits of the case. It is not proper to dismiss the case because the matter of defense has to be proven first in court," Roque told INQUIRER.net in a phone interview.
Roque maintained that Gonzalez and other government officials “approved of the abusive, arbitrary and repressive manner in which policemen treated the journalists who were covering the Manila Peninsula standoff and threatened to unleash the same treatment against journalists in future news events of similar nature.”
“Thus we maintain that restricting the movement of the press in such a threatening manner, taking into account the totality of the official acts of the police and the [Department of Justice], constitutes an invisible threat of state retaliation by its police and prosecutorial forces should the press venture into areas that the police declare as a crime scene,” he added.
Malaya newspaper’s chief correspondent Ellen Tordesillas, one of the plaintiffs, also expressed dismay at the court's decision, maintaining that the public's right to know was higher than any police orders.
"If they have the right to order, as a journalist I am not obliged to follow their order because I have the right to inform people, which is paramount [to] their order. I still stand by [my opinion] that the order violates press freedom and that no law should infringe [on] press freedom," said Tordesillas in a separate phone interview.
When government forces stormed the Manila Peninsula after a seven-hour standoff with junior officers of the Magdalo group, led by Senator Antonio Trillanes IV and Brigadier General Danilo Lim, police arrested journalists inside the hotel and hauled them off to Camp Bagong Diwa in Taguig.
Police justified the journalists’ arrests, claiming that some of the renegade soldiers had disguised themselves as media workers.
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