2 De Oro newsmen nabbed for libel

By Froilan Gallardo
of MindaNews

CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY, May 7, 2003--It was a black day for press freedom here.

Veteran journalist Herbie Gomez, executive editor of Gold Star Daily, and Sun.Star Cagayan de Oro photographer Joey Nacalaban were arrested this morning for libel.

Their arrest was ordered by the court after Tangub City Mayor Jennifer Tan filed a P5-million libel suit against them.

Gomez and Nacalaban, a former correspondent of Gold Star Daily, wrote a series of articles on the controversial coal plant in Tagoloan town, Misamis Oriental.

Tan is the chair of the Northern Mindanao Regional Development Council infrastructure committee which evaluated the financial viability of the coal plant project.

Co-accused Marife Dorona, Gold Star Daily Ozamiz City bureau chief, has gone into hiding and remains at large.

The arrest of Gomez and Nacalaban came after a ranking Cagayan de Oro police official filed another libel suit against Jonas Bustamante, manager of radio station DxCO owned by Radyo Pilipino Corp.

"Here in Northern Mindanao, journalists are facing a different kind of threat. Politicians regularly file libel cases to harass us," Gomez said.

Policemen went to the Cagayan de Oro Press Club along Velez St. to arrest Gomez and Nacalaban upon orders from Executive Judge Resurrecion Inting of the Regional Trial Court in Tangub City.

As they were brought to the police's Operation Kahusay ug Kalinaw detention center, fellow journalists came to lend their support.

Several residents also came, bringing food, money and even cell phone cards to the detained journalists.

"I am amazed that despite the divisions in the local media, my colleagues came and were united with us," Gomez said.

Gomez and Nacalaban spent at least two hours in the cramped 4x8-foot cell before their counsel, former Cagayan de Oro Press Club President Jerry

Pacuribot, came up with the money to pay the P10,000 bail.

Gold Star Daily publisher Toto Chu, who paid the bail bond, said he was disappointed that Gomez, Nacalaban, and Dorona were treated like criminals "when all they did was to do their jobs as journalists."

"We keep on talking about the need to fight and uphold press freedom and yet journalists who exercise this freedom are being subjected to laws that are intended for criminals. I find this very ironic," Chu said.

Cagayan de Oro Press Club President Jerry Orcullo said they would be renewing their call for Congress to decriminalize libel.

In her complaint, Mayor Tan said she was maligned by the journalists when they wrote that she went to Germany on a junket trip sponsored by the coal plant proponent, State Power Development Corp.

Gomez and Nacalaban denied writing about this but said they were concerned when Tan's committee found that the government will have to fork out P500 million annually for the coal plant to financially survive.

Journalists hit arrest of CDO colleagues

By CARMELITO Q. FRANCISCO
of BusinessWorld

DAVAO CITY, May 10, 2003--The local chapter of the National Union of Journalists in the Philippines (NUJP) has condemned the arrest of three journalists in Cagayan de Oro City in Northern Mindanao who were charged for libel by a city mayor in Misamis Occidental.

In a statement issued yesterday, Carlos Conde, NUJP-Davao City coordinator, said the group, already alarmed by the assassination of several people in the profession, "is also alarmed over the libel cases being filed with seeming impunity against members of the Cagayan de Oro media."

Charged for libel by mayor Jennifer Tan of Tangub City were Herbie Gomez, executive editor of the Cagayan de Oro City-based Gold Star Daily, reporter Joey Nacalaban and the paper's Ozamiz City bureau chief Marife Dorona.

"(It) is a classic case of harassment and repression of the media," Mr. Conde said, pointing out that the libel law has become an instrument particularly against members of the press in Cagayan de Oro where some government officials have used it in harassing journalists they disagreed with.

The press statement cited the case of Jonas Bustamante, a local radio station manager, who has been charged with more than 50 counts of libel cases because of his commentaries against city and police officials.

A Cagayan de Oro City daily reported that police officials threatened to file 100 libel charges against Mr. Bustamante for his commentaries.

Mr. Conde also criticized Cagayan de Oro Mayor Vicente Emano whom Gold Star Daily quoted as having hailed the filing of charges against Mr. Bustamante, he being of the subject of the commentator stinging criticism.

"It's only right to discipline broadcasters who don't watch their mouths," Mr. Emano was quoted by a report as saying. Mr. Conde said Mr. Emano's statement is uncalled for because "this only encourages attacks on the press."

"NUJP maintains that the public, the consumers of news from print and broadcast, are the final arbiter of the media's or a journalist's fate. They alone have the right--and the responsibility--to 'discipline' the press, not by filing criminal charges, not by assassination," the press statement said. "If the public thinks that a newspaper or a radio station has lost its credibility, then it will stop buying the newspaper and stop listening to the broadcast. Eventually, the newspaper or the radio station will realize that its lack of credibility is its own worst enemy and that it either strives to gain that credibility or it will perish. It is as simple as that," he added.

The NUJP called on lawmakers to decriminalize libel because by doing so "will rid the law, at least partly, of its repressive element."

"The principle of law is to make citizens responsible for their actions. Our libel law, on the other hand, has always been used to exact revenge against journalists and to muzzle them...(I)t now appears that vengeance and intimidation are precisely the intent of the libel law, not to make responsible citizens out of journalists," he said.

Meanwhile, yesterday marked the first day of "countdown to justice" which Filipino journalists launched as a campaign for justice for slain colleague Edgar Damalerio.

Spearheaded by the Freedom Fund for Filipino Journalists, Inc. (FFFJ), several broadcast and print media outfits started a countdown on justice and will continue on a daily basis until justice for Mr. Damalerio is achieved.

With the countdown, Mr. Damalerio's picture, an update of the case and the "countdown" logo appeared on newspapers and television news programs starting yesterday, exactly five days before the first death anniversary of Damalerio's killing on May 13.

Radio stations also began their own version of the countdown through plugs and announcements.

Mr. Damalerio, a journalist based in Pagadian City, is known for his exposes on the illegal activities of local officials.

He was shot dead while driving his owner-type jeep near Pagadian's city hall and police station. Edgar Amoro and Edgar Ongue, who were with Damalerio when he was killed, identified Police Officer 1 Guillermo Wapille as the gunman.

A warrant for Wapille's arrest was issued last January, but police has failed to find the suspect.--with Iris Cecilia S. Gonzales

Journalists jailed for libel, post bail

By Lizanilla J. Amarga
Sun.Star Cagayan de Oro, May 8, 2003

IT was for local media practitioners a heartbreaking sight as they were treated to a spectacle of two of their own being hauled off like common criminals.

Local journalists Herbie Gomez, executive editor of Gold Star Daily (GSD) and Joey Nacalaban, former reporter for GSD but now a photojournalist for this paper, were arrested and imprisoned at Police Precint 1 prison cell Wednesday.

Both Gomez and Nacalaban including Marife Dorona, GSD Ozamiz bureau chief, were slapped with a P5 million libel case by Tangub City Mayor Jennifer Tan.

The libel suit was in response to a news story that appeared in their paper in June last year which allegedly called the local officials as "traitors and junketeers" for joining a trip to Germany.

The trip was sponsored by proponents of the million Mindanao Coal Fired-Thermal Power Plant which came out June last year.

As a result of the arrest and imprisonment of Gomez and Nacalaban Wednesday, Senator Aquilino "Nene" Pimentel Jr. immediately filed a Senate bill decriminalizing libel.

"I assure Herbie Gomez and Joey Nacalaban my full support and help. In fact I have filed a bill in the senate decriminalizing libel," he said in a text message sent to Sun.Star Cagayan de Oro yesterday.

Meanwhile, Cagayan de Oro Press Club (COPC) President Jerry Orcullo vowed that the arrests and imprisonment of Gomez and Nacalaban will not just go down the drain and be forgotten.

"They were treated like criminals when all they did was do their job. Today is the day when press freedom died in our locality and we should unite together to make sure that what happened to Herbie and Joey can never ever happen again," he said.

Orcullo is now considering calling the entire COPC, considered the largest media organization in Region 10 with more than 100 members to discuss and pass a resolution decriminalizing libel.

He said the COPC will immediately submit this resolution to Congress and lobby it there.

To Orcullo, the libel law being a criminal offense is an obsolete law fit for the time of kings and queens when no peasant is allowed to say anything against their feudal lords and ladies.

He said this even as as he slammed Tan for being an "onion-skinned" official.

"She owes her position to the people who in turn has the right to take back her position...kini nga libel gamay ra gani ni wala ra gani ni ingon nga gikuha ug balik sa mga tao iyang position mityabaw na dayon siya (This libel is just a small matter this is nothing compared to having the people take back her position but she already cried foul)," he told reporters Wednesday.

But then Orcullo said he understands Tan's overly reaction as Tangub city is a dynasty ruled by her family ever since.

As such he said she may not be such a mature politician to be able to handle criticisms hurled by media as like the others here in Cagayan de Oro.

"Those who were really named as traitors and junketeers didn't even file the libel what more for her case when she was not directly labeled as such?" he said.

Sun.Star failed to get Tan's reaction as she is in Tangub.

Bayan Muna regional spokesperson Nero Vallar also gave his word that they will also elevate this matter to three of their partylist representatives in Congress.

"We through our representatives in Congress--Satur Ocampo, Crispin Beltran and Lisa Masa--will also submit a resolution to have libel decriminalized," he said.

City Councilor Juan Sia who visited Nacalaban and Gomez sympathized with their plight and joined other members of the tri-media in standing outside the almost airless OKK prison cell.

He too vowed to bring up the matter of passing a resolution at the City Council decriminalizing libel suits.

"In my opinion, mass media are the fiscalizers of our society they help us decide which is black and white... they are our greatest possession," he said.

Meanwhile, GSD legal counsel Atty. Jerry Pacuribot is now planning on filing administrative charges against Tangub city prosecutor Sylvia Singidas-Mochacon at the Office of the Ombudsman in Mindanao.

He said the city fiscal expedited the filing of the libel suit in court even without a resolution deciding the motion for reconsideration which the journalists filed immediately after receiving the decision.

"We are mulling the idea of filling an administrative case versus Tangub fiscal for apparent bias, prematurely filing the information with court even as our motion for reconsideration was not yet resolved," his text message reads.

At 8 a.m. yesterday, more than 50 media practitioners from media neophytes to "well-known" veterans flocked to the COPC office where SPO4 Benjamin Rada served the warrant signed by Machacon.

They raised fists in the air and shouted "Press Freedom" along with Orcullo, Gomez and Nacalaban as the three were led out of the COPC building at Velez streets.

The members of the press also accompanied the arrested journalists to the Police Precint 1 in Divisoria where both were imprisoned inside a mini cell.

Some even wanted to join Gomez and Nacalaban inside but was not allowed to do so by Rada. They were detained inside for about an hour and thirty minutes.

Local media and other supporters also gave the two detained journalists some cellphone cards, candies, buko juice, junk foods and even two Jollibee Langhap-Sarap hotdog meals.

Though the payment of the P10,000 bailbond each for their temporary freedom was immediately paid by GSD publisher Ernesto Chu some documents have to be legworked by Orcullo and GSD editor in chief Allan Mediante.

All waited until around 11:30 a.m. their release orders signed by RTC Branch 19 executive judge Edgardo Lloren arrived.

However, there was no report as to whether the warrant of arrest was already served to Dorona yesterday as she is currently in Ozamiz city.

Gomez told Sun.Star that Tan misinterpreted their story saying they never called her one of the local officials who are "traitors and junketeers."

He quoted their story as saying that they only received reports that she is also out of the country.

"Nasayop siya kay wala man gyud to... iyaha ra kadtong huna-huna (She was wrong... it was just all in her mind)," he said.

But to Gomez what happened to them is a "blessing in disguise" since this will serve as a wake up call for all media practitioners to not just fight for the rights of others but also to fight for their constitutional rights themselves.

"It's very ironic that we have press freedom and freedom of speech in our Constitution but we in the media cannot fight for these rights... look how we are instead being treated like criminals when we exercise these rights," he said.

Nacalaban for his part said being put to jail, land in a hospital or in a coffin are part of the hazards of being a media practitioner.

"If you haven't fully realized this then you are not a true media practitioner," he said.


Police arrest scribes

By GENEVIEVE CANTOR
of Gold Star Daily, May 8, 2003

POLICE arrested yesterday two Cagayan de Oro-based journalists in connection with a libel suit filed by the mayor of Tangub City, barely two weeks before the celebration of the Press Freedom Week in Cagayan de Oro.

Arrested were Gold Star Daily executive editor Herbie Gomez and Sun.Star-Cagayan de Oro reporter-photographer Joey Nacalaban who used to be a correspondent of this paper.

Amid howls of protests over the filing of the libel suit and the subsequent issuance of arrest warrants against the journalists, Gomez and Nacalaban were arrested at the office of the Cagayan de Oro Press Club (COPC) on Velez and Luna streets. They were brought to Police Precinct No. 1 in Divisoria.

Behind bars, the two journalists called for the decriminalization of libel, which is considered a criminal offense in the country. Much of the time, they brandished a piece of paper with the words "Press Freedom!" written on it.

"Stop treating journalists like they are criminals," said Gomez as he and Nacalaban complained about the heat and the smelly 4x8x10-ft detention cell.

Police officers on duty said the journalists were the first people detained inside that cell yesterday.

The arresting officer, SPO4 Benjamin Rada, said the journalists were arrested based on an order by a regional court in Tangub City where Gomez,

Nacalaban and another journalist, Marife Dorona, were charged with libel by Mayor Jennifer Tan. Dorona is based in Ozamiz City.

Tan has accused the journalists of branding her as a "traitor" and "junketeer" in a July 8, 2002 story bannered by the Gold Star Daily.

The three journalists denied Tan's accusation, saying the words were lifted from a press statement released by the environmental watchdog Task Force Macajalar. In the statement, the group criticized Misamis Oriental and Cagayan de Oro officials who availed of an all expenses-paid trip to Germany courtesy of a company undertaking a controversial 300-million dollar coal-fired power plant project in Misamis Oriental.

Gold Star Daily president and publisher Ernesto Chu said the controversial story never stated that Tan was a member of the delegation to Germany and neither did it state that the mayor availed of a free trip abroad.

Chu said he felt bad that the journalists were arrested.

Asked by a radio reporter if he would handcuff the two journalists, SPO4 Rada said, "I don't think that's necessary. They are not criminals, they are respected media practitioners."

Gomez and Nacalaban said they were overwhelmed because of the outpouring of public support as local radio stations simultaneously carried news of their arrest and turned it into a major media event in Cagayan de Oro. Sympathizers sent mobile phone cards, soft drinks, fruit juice, fast food, candies and other junk food to the detention cell.

The two journalists also received a flood of phone calls and text messages from friends, relatives and sympathizers.

"I feel flattered, this has never happened to me before," said Nacalaban.

Councilor Juan Sia who lives nearby, rushed to the police precinct and offered to help the two journalists but Gomez turned down the offer and instead told the local legislator to author a City Council resolution that would urge Congress to decriminalize libel.

"We keep on talking about upholding press freedom and yet in this country, journalists are continuously subjected to a law that goes against the principle of freedom," said Gomez. "There are senators and congressmen who used to be journalists, what are they doing?"

Sen. Aquilino Pimentel Jr. briefly talked with Gomez, Nacalaban and local press club president Jerry Orcullo on the phone shortly before the police took the journalists to the police precinct.

Pressed for comment on Pimentel's phone call, the journalists said the senator expressed his sympathy and full support, and pledged to push for the decriminalization of libel.

A former mayor of Cagayan de Oro, Pimentel declared Press Freedom Week in city at the height of his fight against the Marcos dictatorship. It has since become an annual media event in the city.

Cagayan de Oro Mayor Vicente Emano also went on air to decry the filing of libel suits against journalists by politicians.

"I am being criticized by media personalities most of the time. Some are below the belt but I have never charged any journalist with libel," said Emano. "Politicians should not be onion-skinned because criticisms are part of our job. Sadly, some officials lack political maturity."

The party-list Bayan Muna also condemned the arrest of Gomez and Nacalaban, saying it was a serious blow to press freedom.

"The filing of libel cases against journalists is a form of harassment," said local Bayan Muna coordinator Nero Vallar.

The local press club said it was alarmed over the increasing number of libel suits against journalists in Cagayan de Oro and elsewhere in the region.

Aside from Gomez and Nacalaban, another journalist, radio commentator Jonas Bustamante of DxCO, is facing over 50 counts of libel filed by acting city police director Antonio Montalba and his subordinates. Montalba has warned of over 100 counts of libel against the commentator to be filed soon in Misamis Oriental and Bukidnon provinces.

"We will not be cowed, our journalists will continue their crusade and their fight for good governance," said COPC president Orcullo, even as he echoed calls for Congress to decriminalize libel.

He described the country's libel law as "obsolete, crafted during the time of monarchs".

Orcullo said, "This is a sad day for journalism. Today, two more journalists were harassed."

Gomez and Nacalaban were freed shortly before noon after Orcullo and Gold Star Daily editor-in-chief Allan Mediante brought two court orders for the release of the journalists. Gold Star Daily paid for their bailbonds which were set at P10 thousand each by the Regional Trial Court in Tangub City.

Gomez is a former president of the local press club while Nacalaban is a director of the media organization.


Journalist threatens to sue Tangub prosecutor
Gold Star Daily, Thursday, May 8, 2003

AN editor of Gold Star Daily yesterday threatened to press an administrative case against a Tangub prosecutor after police arrested him and another journalist in Cagayan de Oro in connection with a libel case.

Herbie Gomez, executive editor of this paper, said Tangub prosecutor Sylvia Machacon pressed libel charges against him and journalists Joey Nacalaban and Marife Dorona despite the absence of a resolution on their motion for reconsideration.

Jerry Pacuribot, the lawyer of the journalists, said Machacon should have issued a resolution on the motion of Gomez, Nacalaban and Dorona before she filed the information before the Regional Trial Court (RTC) in Tangub City.

As a result of the filing of the information, the regional court issued arrest warrants against the journalists. Gomez and Nacalaban were arrested and briefly detained yesterday. They are now out on bail.

"It was prematurely filed before the court," said Pacuribot, adding that certain procedures set by the justice department were not followed.

"In fact," added Pacuribot, "one of the respondents did not officially receive any resolution from the prosecutor."

Gomez, fearing that "shortcuts" were made, said he asked Pacuribot to study the possibility of filing a grave abuse of authority charge against Machacon.


TFM dares Tan: 'Charge us, too'

By NELSON CONSTANTINO
of Gold Star Daily, May 12, 2003

THE environmental watchdog Task Force Macajalar has dared Tangub City Mayor Jennifer Tan to include the group and its officials in her controversial libel suit against the editor of this paper and two other journalists.

"We dare Mayor Tan of Tangub to include us in the charge sheet. For a good cause, it's an honor to be in jail," said Macajalar spokesperson Bencyrus Ellorin.

The challenge was made following the Wednesday arrest and detention of Gold Star Daily executive editor Herbie Gomez and journalist Joey Nacalaban who used to be a correspondent of this paper.The jailed journalists are now out on bail.

Another journalist, Ozamiz City-based Marife Dorona, was also included in the libel suit filed in connection with a 2002 story bannered by this paper. The story was about the US-million coal-fired power plant project in Misamis Oriental.

Gomez and Nacalaban authored the story with Dorona.

"Our salute to [Gold Star Daily] for your principled stand, for your objectivity and fairness in covering the issue of the proposed Mindanao Coal-Fired Power Plant," said Ellorin even as he accused northern Mindanao's Regional Development Council (RDC)of railroading the endorsement of the controversial coal-fired plant project last year.

The RDC officially endorsed the project despite the absence, at that time, of an environmental clearance certificate (ECC) from the environment department and an official evaluation report that said the planned plant would not survive unless it received an annual subsidy of over P500 million from the government. The evaluation report, ironically, came from the technical secretariat of the RDC's infrastructure development committee, which Mayor Tan chairs.

"Now, Mayor Jennifer Tan is throwing her weight on Herbie Gomez and Joey Nacalaban for their principled, objective, balanced and fair reporting on the controversial issues hounding the proposed Mindanao Coal-Fired Power Plant," said Macajalar in its May 9 statement on the arrest of the two journalists.

The Macajalar statement alleged that the endorsement of the project was "railroaded... despite the findings of the [infrastructure] committee's technical secretariat that the project is not economically and financially feasible."

The alleged railroading, according to Ellorin, was made on June 17, 2002.

"The Task Force Macajalar then was a voice in the wilderness opposing the project," said Ellorin. "Had it not been for the reportage of Herbie Gomez and Joey Nacalaban, the public would have been [left] in the dark on the issue."

Ellorin said what happened to Gomez and Nacalaban last week only showed that there are government officials "who do not decide based on merits..."

Macajalar also called on people to move in collective opposition to the planned construction of "the environmentally destructive, economically and financially non-feasible Mindanao Coal-fired Power Plant."


NATIONAL UNION OF JOURNALISTS IN THE PHILIPPINES
Davao City Chapter

The National Union of Journalists in the Philippines (Davao City Chapter) strongly condemns the arrest and detention of Cagayan de Oro journalists Herbie Gomez of Gold Star Daily and Joey Nacalaban of Sun.Star Cagayan de Oro on May 7 for libel. The NUJP is also alarmed over the libel cases being filed with seeming impunity against members of the Cagayan de Oro media.

While some may view the filing of the case as an appropriate way to redress the grievance of the complainant, Tangub City Mayor Jennifer Tan, (after all, journalists in other areas are not being sued--they are being murdered), it was meant to do the same thing: instill fear in the hearts of journalists so that they won't be able to perform their duty to report and criticize official actions. The libel charge against Gomez, Nacalaban, and Gold Star Daily's Ozamiz City bureau chief Marife Dorona, therefore, is a classic case of harassment and repression of the media.

This case also brought to our attention the predicament of the Cagayan de Oro press, where officials have found in the libel statute a convenient weapon to harass its members. According to a report in Gold Star Daily, DxCO station manager Jonas Bustamante has been charged with more than 50 counts of libel for his commentary against city and police officials. The officials he has been criticizing promised to file 100 more libel cases.

It doesn't help that officials such as Cagayan de Oro Mayor Vicente Emano, himself the subject of Bustamante's on-air criticisms, would issue statements like this (as quoted in the Gold Star Daily report), "It's only right to discipline broadcasters who don't watch their mouths."

Statements such as this only encourage attacks on the press.

NUJP maintains that the public, the consumers of news from print and broadcast, are the final arbiter of the media's or a journalist's fate. They alone have the right--and the responsibility--to "discipline" the press, not by filing criminal charges, not by assassination. If the public thinks that a newspaper or a radio station has lost its credibility, then it will stop buying the newspaper and stop listening to the broadcast. Eventually, the newspaper or the radio station will realize that its lack of credibility is its own worst enemy and that it either strives to gain that credibility or it will perish. It is as simple as that.

But short of repealing the libel law from our statutes, the case in Cagayan de Oro strengthens the NUJP's position that our libel law should be decriminalized. Decriminalizing will rid the libel law, at least partly, of its repressive element.

The principle of law is to make citizens responsible for their actions. Our libel law, on the other hand, has always been used to exact revenge against journalists and to muzzle them. This is done with such impunity that it now appears that vengeance and intimidation are precisely the intent of the libel law, not to make responsible citizens out of journalists.

How can a law that puts journalists behind bars serve the interest of press freedom, let alone the public?

Carlos H. Conde
Coordinator
NUJP-Davao City