Unpresidentiable?
Journalists score FPJ’s ‘Bullying of TV Reporter’

It isn’t just Gloria Macapagal Arroyo who has a temper among the presidential candidates. And at the rate action star and leading presidential aspirant Fernando Poe Jr. is going, his short fuse will soon alienate a lot of journalists.

BY BULATLAT.COM  

KNP presidential bet Fernando Poe, Jr. captured in an ABS-CBN video grab thrusting a microphone toward GMA 7 reporter Sandra Aguinaldo

The National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP) recently expressed concern over what it described as presidentiable Fernando Poe Jr.’s “display of pique” when he reportedly thought a reporter was attempting to upstage him.

While covering Poe’s campaign sortie in Iloilo City last Thursday April 1, GMA-TV 7 reporter Sandra Aguinaldo stood on the stage, near Poe who was addressing the crowd, in order to do a “stand-up” for a live feed telecast. Poe apparently got irritated and approached Aguinaldo from behind and thrust his microphone at her, saying, “Ikaw na lang kaya” (Why don’t you do it instead). 

To make matters worse, vice presidential candidate Loren Legarda and Koalisyong ng Nagkakaisang Pilipino (KNP) campaign manager Vicente Sotto III afterward told Aguinaldo to apologize. Aguinaldo stood her ground and refused to apologize.

The incident was caught by television cameras and shown on almost all TV stations.

Star complex

In a statement signed by Inday Espina-Varona and its other officers, the NUJP said it understands why Aguinaldo could have distracted Poe from his campaign spiel but it said, “the presidential contender's response showed once more a disturbing tendency to lash out at media for inconveniences suffered in his quest for the country's top post.”

“Poe's claim that Aguinaldo was distracting his audience does not wash,” it said. “The presidential candidate is a certified showbiz star, and one trained in the art of holding a huge audience under his spell. He was using a mike; Aguinaldo's own was connected to GMA's equipment and not designed to boom across the crowd.”

The media group further said, “Granting that Aguinaldo may have been a bit too enthusiastic in her reportage, there was no malice on the part of the reporter. In contrast, Poe's public taunt for Aguinaldo to take his place was an attempt to play to the crowd at the expense of the reporter.”

NUJP pointed out that it was not the first time Poe has vented his temper on a member of the press. Earlier, he made a grab for a Reuter staff photographer's camera, merely because he thought it was insolent of a photographer to take his picture with a poster of incumbent President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo in the background.

He also threatened to punch a photographer of a foreign news agency during a sortie in Pampanga, when the photojournalist accidentally hit Poe’s hand with his camera. The actor was also reported to have shouted at media members during Legarda’s birthday party at Sheraton

Worse

According to the group, the reactions of Legarda and Sotto are “condemnable.” Both demanded an apology from Aguinaldo in a bid to mollify the irate Poe, even as Legarda admitted she didn't quite understand the cause of the incident.

“Sotto, in demanding for the pull out of Aguinaldo, only betrayed the kind of arrogance that underpins his concepts of power. The NUJP understands the tremendous pressure brought to bear on a neophyte politician aiming for the country's top post. But the two senators' actions, instead of helping Poe engage media in reasoned discussion, simply tried to pander to his worst trait,” NUJP said. 

Consistent

The NUJP consists of more than 45 chapters nationwide and has consistently campaigned for press freedom and the rights and welfare of Filipino journalists.

When Macapagal-Arroyo berated in public Tina Panganiban-Perez, another GMA-7 reporter, for interviewing Sen. Gregorio Honasan at the height of the coup crisis last year, NUJP also issued a statement, as well as against the killings of media practitioners and the inability of government to arrest the killers. Bulatlat.com

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