CHR asked to probe seizure of magazine copies in Bulacan

CITY OF MALOLOS, Bulacan, Philippines — Officials of nonprofit media organization Pinoy Weekly on Tuesday said they would file complaints in the Commission on Human Rights over the seizure of their magazines from the Kalipunan ng Damayang Mahihirap (Kadamay) office in Pandi, Bulacan province.

Magazine editor Kenneth Roland Guda said the seizure was a violation of the freedom of the press.

“Our Constitution does not prevent us from criticizing the government. What police did was clearly unlawful,” Guda said, adding that the seizure was the third attack carried out by the police against the publication.

On Sunday, Bulacan police confiscated copies of Pinoy Weekly from a housing unit in Villa Lois that Kadamay used as a temporary stockroom.

Police said the materials were surrendered to them. But Guda said the Kadamay members were forced to surrender the materials after the police threatened to file charges against them.

Police had described the materials as “subversive” although Philippine National Police chief, Police Gen. Archie Gamboa, had cautioned his men against using the term since the antisubversion law (Republic Act No. 1700) had already been repealed.

Guda recalled that in September 2019, police also burned bundles of Pinoy Weekly magazines at a Kadamay housing unit in Barangay Mapulang Lupa, also in Pandi.

Complaints welcomed

In April this year, police manning a quarantine checkpoint in Norzagaray town in Bulacan seized copies of the magazine from Kadamay members who were delivering relief goods.

“Clearly, this is an open attack on the freedom of the press. People are deprived of their right to read what they want,” Guda said.

Brig. Gen. Rhodel Sermonia, Central Luzon police chief, said they would welcome the complaints but insisted that the magazine contained materials that were “inciting to sedition.”

According to Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra, police may confiscate materials whose contents incite people to rise up in arms against the government.

But if the materials merely express a position on social issues, such as those against the antiterrorism law, it will be a lawful exercise of one’s freedom of speech or expression protected by the Constitution, Guevarra said on Tuesday.

—Reports from Carmela Reyes-Estrope and Donna Z. Pazzibugan