AFP chief hit for adopting ‘legal fiction’

Journalists and rights group on Thursday again condemned the government’s anti-insurgency task force men for insinuating that the Inquirer.net reporter they branded a communist propagandist bore the “burden of denial” in disputing their claims—a nonexistent legal concept.

This was after Armed Forces of the Philippines chief Cirilito Sobejana attempted to distance himself from the recent gaffe committed by his Philippine Military Academy classmate, Southern Luzon Command chief Lt. Gen. Antonio Parlade Jr., by saying that Parlade and Inquirer.net reporter Tetch Torres-Tupas had the burden of proving—and denying—each other’s allegations.

In a statement, the National Union of Journalists in the Philippines (NUJP) said it was “aghast” at Sobejana’s statement that Tupas might have been “dictated by her emotions or whatever” when she wrote the factually accurate story.

The NUJP added that it was “dangerous” for Sobejana to pick up Parlade’s “twisted logic of equating journalism [with] the journalist’s supposed ‘sympathy.’”

“This is victim-blaming, pure and simple, and attempts to create a legal fiction that both accuser and accused have an equal responsibility,” the NUJP said.

It added that it was disappointed by Sobejana’s turnaround after he ordered the military provost marshal to investigate Parlade.