MANILA, Philippines -- Philippine media fought back against what they perceived to be government attempts to curtail press freedom, filing separate suits before the Makati regional trial court and the Supreme Court to stop threats of further arrests of journalists covering emergency situations.
In Makati City, Regional Trial Court Executive Judge Winlove Dumayas issued a 72-hour temporary restraining order (TRO) early Monday afternoon barring government, police and military officials and personnel from threatening or arresting journalists, soon after four media organizations and more than 30 individual media practitioners filed a class suit seeking damages for threats to press freedom.
Around the same time, 81 journalists filed before the Supreme Court a petition for the issuance of writs of prohibition and injunction urging the tribunal to stop the government from imposing prior restraint on the press by threatening to file criminal complaints against journalists.
Both cases are offshoots of the arrest of journalists after government forces put down an attempted uprising by mutinous soldiers who occupied the Manila Peninsula Hotel in Makati City last November 29 and subsequent threats to carry out similar arrests if media refused to obey government orders.
A number of journalists arrested during the Manila Peninsula incident joined either of the two cases as plaintiffs.
Officers of media organizations that joined the Makati class suit said many more journalists, including from the provinces, are also signing forms to be included as plaintiffs in either of the two cases.
Among these are at least 20 from Lucena, and journalists from Davao, Zamboanga and Baguio, among others.
The respondents in the Makati case are Justice Secretary Raul Gonzales, Local Government Secretary Ronaldo Puno, Defense Secretary Gilbert Teodoro, police Director General Avelino Razon Jr., National Capital Region Police Office Director Geary Barias, Chief Superintendents Luizo Ticman of the Southern Police District and Leocadio Santiago Jr. of the Special Action Force, Senior Superintendent Asher Dolina of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group-National Capital Region, and Armed Forces chief of staff General Hermogenes Esperon Jr.
In the Supreme Court petition, Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita was included as a respondent while Ticman and Santiago were not.
The class suit in Makati seeks P10 million in damages that the plaintiffs said was intended to drive home the point that it would be “costly for those who would abuse the power momentarily entrusted to them by the sovereign citizens of this land.”
The TRO issued by Dumayas ordered the respondents and all persons connected with [the] defendants to refrain and desist from issuing threats of arrest, from implementing such threats against [the] plaintiffs and/or other members of the media who are covering events similar to the Manila Pen[insula] standoff and ordering and maintaining the status quo between the said parties until such time that the issue presented in this instant suit are resolved by the court.”
He issued the order “considering the extreme urgency and that great and irreparable injury would result to the plaintiffs” if the government’s threats of arrest are carried out before the case can be heard in court.
Dumayas also ordered the complaint and TRO served on the respondents immediately to allow the case to be raffled among the Makati RTC branches on Thursday.
Lawyer Harry Roque, who represented the plaintiffs, said the TRO was necessary to “prevent these officials from harassing” journalists in the course of their work.
The class suit plaintiffs said they filed the case as “part of the journalism community’s continuing response to official intimidation, threats and harassment” and as “a warning that the Philippine press and the individuals and groups that compose it have passed the stage of issuing statements and manifestoes alone, and will supplement such campaigns for public awareness with the use of the legal means at their disposal.”
ABS-CBN news and current affairs chief Maria Ressa, in a statement, echoed similar sentiments, saying they filed the petition before the Supreme Court because “we know that if we do nothing, we held destroy press freedom.”
“We take this action because we cannot allow press freedom to be confined to narrow physical bounds and narrowly interpreted principles, conveniently defined by those in authority to serve the political interests of the moment,” she added.
“Our action today is media’s contribution to democracy in our country,” Ressa said. “This is our commitment to upholding it and making it work for our people.”
The organizations that joined the Makati class suit were the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines, Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility, Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism and the Philippine Press Institute.
The complainants said their claim for damages is “not moved by any desire for gain. Should the suit prosper, whatever damages will be awarded will form part of a fund for the defense and protection of press freedom and journalists under threat.”
“That, after all, is what has brought the various media groups and individual practitioners together today, in what is likely to be a historic moment in the continuing struggle for press freedom in this country.”
The Supreme Court petitioners, on the other hand, pointed out that journalists should not be treated as combatants during military or police operations and noted that the Manila Peninsula arrests and the threats of similar arrests that followed were “done without or in excess of their respective jurisdictions, with grave abuse of discretion and with utter disregard of the constitutional rights of petitioners and other journalist."
"Unless this Honorable Court intervenes, [government threats and warning] will not only continue but escalate, to the damage and prejudice not only of petitioners and other journalists, but also the people's constitutional right to information of public concern," the petitioners said.
