Media, Lawyers’ Groups Slam DoJ, Comelec for Media Gag

A form of prior restraint and an attempt to muzzle press freedom. This is how media groups and a lawyers’ group see the Department of Justice’s threat to file criminal action against individuals and groups suspected of disseminating “false news or information on the election results.”

BY BULATLAT.COM

The National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP), a national organization of working journalists; the Philippine Press Institute (PPI), an association of newspaper publishers; and the National Press Club (NPC), an association of mainly Manila-based mediamen, all issued statements criticizing Acting Justice Secretary Merceditas Guitierrez’s statement. 

The media groups also rapped the Commission on Elections (Comelec) for its cease-and-desist order dated May 18 addressed to the Associated Broadcasting Corp. (ABC-5) and the election quick count it was conducting.

The NUJP reminded Secretary Gutierrez that “her powers do not include passing judgment on the veracity or falsehood of news reports. Given the continuing count of votes cast last May 10, it would be premature of the Justice Secretary to determine which reports are accurate and which are false.”

NUJP chair Inday Espina-Varona also denounced Comelec’s move to halt ABC 5’s quick count.

“All counts, quick or not, are partial and unofficial and most reports stress this. The market, the public, will hold ABC5 to account if its count is later found to be questionable. The Comelec would be better served investigating the numerous problems that cropped up during the recent polls,” NUJP said.

Even the traditionally conservative PPI said of the DOJ threat, “We find this sweeping presumption and naked display of the arrogance of power reprehensible.”

It expressed outrage that the DOJ has directed the National Bureau of Investigation to form a special task force to investigate dissemination of alleged “false news.”

“Besides violating the constitutional freedom of the press, the DOJ and Comelec gag orders also violate another basic constitutional right: the right of the people to information on matters of vital public interest. By imposing prior restraint on mass media, the government is violating the people’s right to know,” said PPI.

Legal opinions

The Public Interest Law Center (PILC) on the other hand called Comelec’s move a form of “censorhip or prior restraint.”

In a statement cheekily called “The Emperor has no clothes, Empress Gloria has no clothes,” the PILC quoted PILC board member lawyer Marichu Lambino explaining that prior restraint means “the publication or broadcast is stopped even before it sees the light of day. Nobody gets to see it. A small group of people in government decides what is fit or not fit for the public to read or see.”

Another PILC lawyer, Jayson Lamchek, said “The Comelec and DOJ had failed to cite the law that authorizes them to censor a TV network for airing a quick count, except to say publication of false news.”

Litigator Rommel Quizon, on the other hand, opined that “when the Comelec used the law that authorizes only Namfrel to conduct a quick count, it does not mean that the quick count of media outfits is criminalized. There is no criminal provision or punishment in said law. It only means that quick counts other than Namfrel’s are unofficial, but not criminal and certainly not illegal. Besides, neither does said law confer censorship powers on Comelec.” Bulatlat.com

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