On press freedom

It looks like Malacañang is testing the limits to how far journalists can defend their hard-earned press freedom.

The big issue now is how far press freedom can go. And rallies and petitions are going on in Manila . Malacañang accused them of also wanting publicity.

Friday last week, ABS-CBN's Mitch Lipa called up to interview us on the fight for press freedom. We were not able to make it because of some pressing matters. I'm happy in Manila 70 journalists filed a P10-million class suit against some government officials.

But Saturday at Punta Bulata in Cauayan, the Council of Past Presidents of Negros Press Club sat down and discussed the threat to press freedom. We agreed to make a stand and Ely de los Santos was asked to craft that stand.

We hope by this time that stand has been issued already.

* * *

There is one thing we are happy about. Supreme Court Chief Justice Reynato S. Puno is with us, particularly in his circular to judges to just fine journalists guilty of libel and not to jail them.

In a press conference in Dagupan, Pangasinan, Chief Justice Puno upheld the “preferred status of speech and of the press in the hierarchy of rights under the Constitution…”

He chided Presidential Legal Counsel Sergio Apostol for threatening that “someone might file an impeachment complaint against Puno.”

Puno did not see a basis for an impeachment but “if we will be impeached for protecting the rights of the people, so be it,” he said.

Puno is firm in his stand. He has been a journalist and one time editor-in-chief of the Philippine Collegian of U.P. and a top official of the College Editors Guild of the Philippines .

So was his predecessor Chief Justice Artemio Panganiban. We were contemporaries in the CEG. And Chief Justice Puno survived U.P. as Collegian Editor because he fought against restraints on press freedom.

* * *

Some people are afraid of a licentious press. But I like to quote the oft-quoted statement of the famous Charles Caleb Colton: “A licentious press may be an evil, an enslaved press must be so; for an enslaved press may cause error to be more current than wisdom and wrong more powerful than right. A licentious press cannot effect these things, for if it gives the poison, it gives also the antidote which an enslaved press withholds.”

We can quote endless authors on the press freedom issue. The thing is our own press men in Bacolod are not afraid of repression.

* * *

The siege at Peninsula Hotel did not result in bloodshed because the journalists were there.

Some years ago there was a standoff between two armed groups in front of Ceneco, a squad of policemen under Col. Amado Marquez and a squad of Regional Mobile Group under Col. Camilo Gonzales. Both officers challenged each other holding on to their respective handguns. But, the media were there with their cameras. No shooting happened because of media people.

And it was also providential because then Col. Geary Barias of the Peninsula Hotel fame was provincial commander and he arrived on time to avert bloodshed.

If there were no media there, there might have been shooting. And those media people, mostly women, were not afraid.

So, Sergio Apostol will have Reynato S. Puno impeached? We in Bacolod will stage a very big rally in defense of the Supreme Court Chief Justice who has very convincingly proven that the Supreme court is truly the last bulwark of democracy.

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We must also stand firmly behind Councilor Wilson Gamboa Jr. in his quest for an orderly traffic and even standing up to the noisy but few jeepney drivers.

Other councilors may have been afraid to stand up to the drivers. Jun is not. Cheers, Councilor! These drivers will give way if they see you have political will. Now, they have met their match.

If you are just consistent, you will come out a hero, if traffic is made orderly with your leadership. In Manila , MMDA Chairman Bayani Fernando did it. And the drivers respect him. If our city officials cannot manage our traffic and clear the sidewalk of vendors, we elect jeepney drivers and sidewalk vendors.

Now that you lead the other Councilors must support you. If they do not, let the drivers and sidewalk vendors take over.

* * *

A friend told me to stop promoting Congressman Monico Puentevella's candidacy for the Senate. I will leave a copy of a letter sent me for Congressman Puentevella from one who called himself, “a true-blooded Bacoleño, 69-years old and a retired banker.”

But his letter was postmarked Dumaguete City and was not signed. Newks can make some sleuthing to find out who.

And yesterday, I met at McDonald's Rudy Dizon who bluntly told me, “You have been having a bad dream.”

Who will be our candidate for the Senate? Ah, many said, Tony Meloto of Gawad Kalinga, a Ramon Magsaysay Awardee and a real performer is the best. The politically starved Negros Occidental without a Senator since the 50s will be very happy if Tony Meloto agrees to run.*

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