CMFR Philippines:
Mindoro journalist’s petition for writ of amparo denied

CMFR/PHILIPPINES – In what could be a setback to the campaign for legal protection of journalists under threat, the Manila Court of Appeals denied on 27 June 2008 a petition for a writ of amparo filed by an Oriental Mindoro-based journalist. Oriental Mindoro is a province approximately 140 kms south of Manila .

In a 21-page decision penned by Associate Justice Rosmari Carandang, the Court of Appeals’ Former Special Third Division found the threat to life claimed by Nilo Baculo Sr., former broadcaster and publisher of the community newsletter Traveler's News, “unsubstantiated.”

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CMFR Philippines alert:
Journalist killed in Quezon province

CMFR/Philippines – Two unidentified men gunned down a provincial journalist on his way home in Sariaya, Quezon province on 30 June 2008. Quezon is a province approximately 100 kms southeast of Manila .

Robert “Bert” Sison, a correspondent for the weekly Regional Bulletin and a broadcaster at the Lucena-based dzAT-AM, was with his daughters Almira and Liwayway when a gunman riding pillion on a motorcycle overtook his car and opened fire in Lutucan Bata village, Sariaya, Quezon at around 5:30 p.m.

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The Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility looks at the dismissal by the Makati Regional Trial Court of the class suit it filed with other media organizations and individual journalists as particularly alarming, and agrees with counsel Harry Roque that it could yet be the biggest blow to press freedom to date.

The ruling was issued in the context of a clear policy by a regime hostile to press freedom and the people's right to information to do all it can, both within and outside the law, as well as to stretch to the limit what is legally allowed, to deny the press its Constitutionally- guaranteed right to cover events of public interest, and, therefore, the public's right to information on such matters. The arrest of journalists during the Peninsula incident was not only an attack on the press but on democracy itself.

Read more here.

CMFR Philippines alert:
Judge dismisses case filed by journalists against Manila Pen arrests

CMFR/Philippines—A Makati, Philippines Regional Trial Court judge dismissed a class suit filed by journalists and media organizations against government officials who caused the arrest of several dozen journalists covering a press conference by rebel soldiers on November 29, 2007.

The P10 million (approx. US$245,600) suit was filed in response to the arrests and other forms of government intimidation that followed the arrests. The Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility (CMFR) is a co-petitioner in the case.

Read more here.

Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility Escalating the Cost of Free Expression
Statement on the conviction for libel of Ninez Cacho-Olivares

The Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility views with alarm the conviction for libel and sentencing to a prison term as well as payment of fines of Daily Tribune publisher and editor Ninez Cacho–Olivares.

The six months to two years' imprisonment sentence imposed by Judge Winlove Dumayas of Branch 59 of the Makati Regional Trial Court ignores a Supreme Court memorandum urging the imposition of fines rather than prison terms on journalists convicted of libel.

Winners in Ongpin Awards Known By June 26

The best investigative and explanatory reports published in 2007 will be named on June 26 from among ten finalists during the 19th Jaime V. Ongpin Awards for Excellence on Journalism (JVOAEJ), the Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility (CMFR) which administers the awards has announced.