The Manila Peninsula Stand Off

The stand off at the Manila Peninsula Hotel on the eve of Bonifacio Day last year marked another failed Coup de Etat under President Arroyo’s administration. This misadventure led by Sen. Antonio Trillanes and Brig. Gen. Danilo Lim had provided a platform for another hostility between them and the law-enforcement agencies. The commotion led the sending n of armor and spraying the hotel with high-velocity bullets not to mention the use of tear gas. Security forces stormed the hotel to flush out Trillanes and his group (who were unarmed). From the government’s point of view, it was such a brilliant maneuver. However, there is another dimension to the situation because about 30 journalists and media technicians who covered the event that day were detained on the alleged reason that they may have committed that gray offense called “obstruction of justice.”

A dialogue between the press and the government followed after the peninsula stand off stressing the argument – the public has the right to know. For it is only through this sector that the public can depend on for information on what is really happening in the country. Burt what the entire officialdom fails to realize is the banal presence of media people, going about their business of reporting what was obviously a significant event, who were there just doing their job. Secretary of the Interior Ronaldo Pun insisted that journalists would be arrested if they refused to be shooed away by police if such “scenario” would happen again. Disgraceful as it may sound, we have arrived at a situation in which democracy no longer works for freedom can’t find its true assurance anymore. Surely, this is a case of press freedom being plainly violated and undermined.

The Constitution is clear about press freedom. But what needs to be explained is the government’s threatening to the press who, if will refuse to obey orders to vacate a place of legitimate police and military operations, will be arrested. The thing is, the government has no authority to lecture the press about a field in which it has no expertise if its own diction is deplorable – a fearless and honest exercise of duty as well as the ventilation of truth. It would do well for the government to refrain from doing such considering that it will lose in a sensible debate with the press. But what seems to be ironic here is the unusual concern of the government towards its so called “classic adversary” through a memorandum issued by Justice Secretary Raul Gonzales emphasizing that the press is not being stopped from covering events and the journalist’s dangers of covering a situation like the Peninsula stand off. The Fourth Estate is certain about press coverage and their call of duty. But what appears to be missing here are the law-enforcement agencies’ exercise of responsibility and reason in the discharge of their function. Are we to give them the credit for giving the press the appearance but not the substance of justice?

Moreover, at the height of the stand off, Trillanes and his group called on the people to join them in their bid to oust Mrs. Arroyo but decided to surrender realizing that his attempt to topple the President had failed. However, despite of the catastrophe, it only showed what it has to be real assurance of freedom- where the people have a right to be heard, to disagree, and to ventilate what they believe to be legitimate grievances.

On the side of the press and journalists, the government has failed to intimidate them.- to hell with this era of extrajudicial killings. Journalists and democrats breathe a common air. The Constitution is clear about press freedom so there has to be a line between right and license as well as the exercise of freedom and the abuse of liberties. They know their right to exercise their responsibility and use the power of pen to deliver the truth to the public. Yet no matter how the government threatens the press: journalists who will refuse to obey their orders during such situation. This repression should never happen again. The press will stand up to the challenge of aggression.

Who’s scared, anyway?