The Article 3 Alliance, an umbrella group of Negros media organizations fighting for freedom of the press, yesterday condemned the reported attempts by the police to search the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism office in Manila and joined an amended petition to restrain government officials from muzzling the media

The National Union of Journalist in the Philippines yesterday also reported receiving a tip of a planned raid on its office in Manila. Eight media groups and some of the county's most prominent print and broadcast journalists had earlier filed the petition before the Court of Appeals and named Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita, Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez, Philippine National Police Director General Arturo Lomibao, and National Telecommunications Commission Chairman Ronald Solis respondents.

The petitioners asked the CA to prohibit the respondents from "imposing any form of content-based prior restraint on the press, be it formal or informal, direct or in the form of disguised or thinly veiled threats of administrative sanction or criminal prosecution."

The amendment allows media groups from around the country to join in the petition.

The petitioners are asking the court to immediately issue a certiorari and prohibition with application of a Temporary Restraining Order and Preliminary Injunction against the respondents. They also asked the court to nullify NTC circulars that, they said, were vague and left virtually unlimited discretion to those administering the regulation.

Meanwhile, Sheila Coronel, PCIJ executive director, told the Senate yesterday that their office could have been subjected to a search recently had two lower court judges not rejected an alleged request by the police for a warrant. The search would have been in preparation for the filing of inciting to sedition charges against five PCIJ members, Coronel told senators conducting an inquiry on the effects of Proclamation 1017 on media.*CPG

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