Libel no longer media's crime

It looks as if libel charges are the thing these days. There's the first gentleman, walking up to the Prosecutor's Office yesterday with a pretty lawyer by his side, to file a case against Senator Jinggoy Estrada, son of you-know-who. Seems Jinggoy had imprudently repeated what he had been saying against the FG somewhere beyond the mantle of parliamentary immunity and gave his target the opening to charge him.

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Then we also have the report that a policeman, the chief of the Pasig Police Department, in fact, is readying libel charges also against a congressman for uncharitable things said about him in connection with the discovery of the shabu tianggue in that city. Ever since the discovery and the raid on that drug mall, Rep. Robert Jaworski, better known as "Dodot", or the husband of Mikee Cojuangco, had been positioning himself as the avenging angel hounding both Police Chief Elmer Santiago and city mayor Vicente Eusebio. Why he himself, being congressman of the city, did not know about it or exposed it himself, however, we don't know.

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But doesn't it look now as if libel as a crime associated with journalists is getting out of fashion? The above examples show that government officials are the ones filing libel cases. In the meantime, they don't bother to file libel charges against media people anymore. What is "in" now is the more dangerous one called "inciting to sedition". Already at least one editor has been fingered as an "inciter" because her paper has relentlessly been criticizing the administration. I hear five more are being eyed, and we will probably know who they are soon.

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But it was a lucky coincidence that the lawyer of the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism happened to be in one of the courts of Metro Manila when an application for a search warrant on its offices was filed by a Malacañang agent. That was how the PCIJ officials and staff learned that they were already being targeted for an a la Daily Tribune treatment. Oh the feisty females of Philippine media. There is Ninez Olivares of the Tribune, standing her ground despite the sedition thing, and now here is petite Sheila Coronel bristling in defense of the PCIJ. Sheila is not her daddy's daughter for nothing.

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I wish, though, that somebody would remind the present dispensation that the PCIJ had been one of the strongest factors that led to the gathering at EDSA which ended in the ouster of then President Estrada, to the benefit of the present Malacañang occupant. All those exposés about the excesses of the Erap administration - the love affairs, the Boracay building scandal, even the illegitimate children - they all came to public knowledge because of the investigative reporting done by PCIJ writers. Shouldn't sauce for the gander also be sauce for the goose?

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But why did Solicitor General Alfredo Benipayo suddenly quit? Burned out, the reports said. Why, or how? Did he burn his fingers when he tried to explain the raison d'etre behind Proclamation 1017? Or did he displease his superiors when he admitted at the Supreme Court hearings that there had indeed been some flaws in the implementation of 1017? Poor Benipayo. If even media people are not to write or say what they think, what more someone who is in the payroll of the government?

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When I read the report that some victims of the landslide in Brgy. Ginsaugon, St. Bernard in Southern Leyte were discovered to be selling the relief goods sent by donors from all over the country and elsewhere, I felt indignant. But when I saw the explanation that it was only the canned goods that they were selling in order to buy food they are used to, like vegetables, fish and meat, I sympathized with them. One can only eat sardines, pork and beans and even corned beef so often, you see. So long as the proceeds still go to their own needs, I think we should let them be.

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That is why our family never thought of sending canned stuff. Instead we tried to gather as many blankets, towels, jackets, pants, blouses, shoes, bedsheets and pillow cases as we could to give through the city task force. We knew many others, especially businesses and civic organizations, would concentrate on foodstuff and other necessities. Until now, however, those people there still need our prayers, not only for the souls of the victims, but for the emotional recovery of those who loved them as well.*

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