CHR: Governor who barged into radio station may be liable for grave threats

BAGUIO CITY—The Commission on Human Rights has ruled that Kalinga Gov. Jocel Baac may be liable for grave threats, after concluding there was sufficient evidence that he broke into a government radio station on June 7 to forcibly prevent a government broadcaster from airing his program.

Baac drew the attention of Malacañang when a video, which was recorded by closed-circuit television and posted online, showed him and unidentified men in an altercation with Radio ng Bayan broadcaster Jerome Tabanganay inside the booth of dzRK in Tabuk City in Kalinga.

The Department of the Interior and Local Government investigated the incident in June but Interior Secretary Jessie Robredo has yet to act on the report of a DILG fact-finding team.

The National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP) is also reviewing the results of its own fact-finding mission there, said Nestor Burgos, NUJP president.

Baac said he had no intention of harming Tabanganay, claiming he had proceeded to the radio station to complain about the broadcaster’s tirades against him when tempers flared.

But lawyer Harold Tub-aron, officer in charge of the CHR Cordillera office, said “coercion was consummated” when Baac broke unannounced into the radio booth and had pulled out two microphones from their stands.

According to the CHR resolution, Baac “had the intention and motive to prevent Tabanganay from … continuing with his program.”

Tub-aron said Baac’s actions also violated press freedom when he had other legal avenues to address the “clear and present danger” allegedly posed by Tabanganay for airing topics that Kalinga officials found too sensitive or offensive.

He said the CHR would soon transmit the recommendations to the Cagayan regional prosecutor in Tuguegarao City which may open a preliminary investigation of Tabanganay’s complaint.

Baac said he was not aware that the CHR was among the many agencies that Tabanganay had approached regarding the incident.

In text messages on Friday, Baac said, “There were many cases filed against me in different forums [and] I was relieved [when] the Catholic vicariate in Tabuk sided with me.”

“I did not even know [there was] a CHR complaint … This recommendation by the CHR may have been circulated because [Dec. 10] is International Human Rights Day,” he said.

Tabanganay claimed that the governor struck his mouth with a microphone during the scuffle. He filed charges of slight physical injuries and grave threats against Baac on June 10 at the office of the provincial prosecutor of Kalinga. Vincent Cabreza, Inquirer Northern Luzon