Losing A Beat

A Bulletin reporter wonders about the reason for his transfer
Losing A Beat
By Venus L. Elumbre

Beat assignments are never permanent, that is a reality in media. Editors have the prerogative to reshuffle reporters—whenever they want to, how often they want to.

But when out of the blue, a reporter is being transferred with only one weekend to move out and prepare for his new beat and without clear explanation of the reasons, could this mean something is wrong?

Just after submitting his stories on April 21, Malacañang reporter Ferdie Maglalang of the Manila Bulletin received a call from his editor telling him that he would be transferred to another beat the next Monday.

Maglalang immediately asked if there was a problem with his performance or if something he wrote had gotten somebody’s ire. Bulletin editor-in-chief Cris Icban reportedly replied: “Wala. Basta request galing sa taas.” (Icban declined to be interviewed for this article.)

Initially, Maglalang was to switch beats with Department of Foreign Affairs reporter David Cagahastian (son of Bulletin news editor Diego Cagahastian). Upon his request, however, Maglalang stayed in the Bulletin’s desk for two weeks. There, he talked to his editors who told him that a Malacañang official called the newspaper asking for his transfer.

“Tapos, ‘yun lang,” Maglalang said. According to him, Icban refused to reveal the official’s name.

Maglalang learned that a day before his reassignment order, Ambassador to Greece Rigoberto Tiglao (who was then head of the Presidential Management Staff) made a courtesy visit to the Bulletin and had a meeting with the paper’s owner Emilio Yap.

Maglalang finally began covering the Senate beat on May 8. Cagahastian replaced him in Malacañang.

But why?
Maglalang said he respected the management’s prerogative to assign him to another beat, but he could not help but wonder about the reason for the decision.

“Nagtaka ako kung bakit ganoon kabilis at walang maibigay sa iyo na dahilan,” he said. He was not handed an official memo stating the reasons for the transfer.

He also said he was not given enough time to call for an election in the Malacañang Press Corps (MPC) before he left. Maglalang had been MPC president since August 2004.

Maglalang said he believed he caught the ire of an official in the Office of the Press Secretary (OPS) after writing an article that challenged the qualifications of executive assistant Emerito Magdangal for the position of press assistant secretary.  Maglalang was tipped off by OPS employees who were reportedly “demoralized” when they learned that Magdangal would be promoted.

The article in question was published November 3, 2005. Titled, “OPS official who tore the summons promoted,” the article said Magdangal was recommended to the post of press assistant secretary as a “reward” for his “acting job.” It was Magdangal who tore up the notice of proceedings of the people’s court when he received this from the Citizens Congress for Truth and Accountability in October last year. The proceedings were meant to be given to President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.

In the article, several OPS employees questioned Magdangal’s experience and competence as a public official.  An employee said Magdangal had no civil service eligibility which was why he never had a permanent position in Malacañang.

Magdangal’s reported promotion was “based solely on misplaced obedience and not the requirements of the service,” according to Maglalang’s source.

Maglalang said he did the story because it could affect public administration and good governance. “Legitimate naman ’yung story, eh, saka may sources ako,” he added.

But the subject of the story saw it differently.

Advice
“It pissed me off,” Magdangal said. “Pinalalabas niya na parang undergraduate ako at unqualified.”

About two weeks after the article came out, Magdangal went to the Bulletin office and talked to news editor Diego Cagahastian (who happens to be his friend) to complain about the article. Magdangal told PJR Reports that in the course of his conversation with Cagahastian, he requested Maglalang’s transfer to another beat.

Cagahastian reportedly told him that if he had felt offended by the article, then he should put it in writing and then send this to the Bulletin. Magdangal, however, decided not to do it.

“Naawa rin ako, baka may pamilya,” Magdangal said, referring to Maglalang. “Kapag sinulatan ko at pinatulan ko, lalaki lang ang istorya.”

Nonetheless, Magdangal told Cagahastian to advise Maglalang “to check his facts before he writes anything.”

Magdangal complained that Maglalang did not bother to get his side. “Does that make him an objective reporter?” he asked.

Magdangal also insisted it was not he who caused Maglalang’s transfer. “It was his own fault,” Magdangal said.

The news about Magdangal’s impending promotion was eventually carried by the other newspapers. But how come it was only Maglalang who was taken out of the Palace?

“They know for a fact na sa akin nanggaling ’yung storya. Kasi kumabaga scoop ko iyon, eh,” Maglalang claimed.

His heart on a sticker
Another incident that was viewed as one of the reasons for Maglalang’s transfer was a “Gloria Resign” sticker on the car that he used to drive to work.

A member of the Presidential Security Group saw the sticker and called the attention of Maglalang right away.

“Ganoon na ba sila ka-paranoid para sabihin nila na just on the basis of a sticker na ‘Gloria Resign,’ I’ll be reassigned? Am I a security threat in the first place?” asked Maglalang.

Maglalang said the car with the sticker belonged to a friend who lent it to him after he sold his own car.

“Even if, just for the sake of argument, nilagay ko nga, hindi ba ako entitled sa aking political beliefs?” said Maglalang.

Maglalang was also told that there were statements issued by the MPC that displeased Malacañang. Late last year, Malacañang planned to transfer the journalists’ working area from its present office in Kalayaan Hall to the New Executive Building. The MPC, under Maglalang’s leadership, opposed the plan because it could pose difficulties in their coverage of President Arroyo and other Palace officials.

Malacañang’s victim?
Was there pressure from Malacañang to remove Maglalang from the premiere beat?

“I have good reason to believe na talagang tinrabaho,” said Maglalang. “I don’t think (Magdangal) would be doing that on his own without the blessing of someone higher than him.”

In the Bulletin, there had been talk about the alleged Malacañang pressure but this has not been confirmed.

The order for the transfer came from the Bulletin’s owner Don Emilio Yap, according to another Bulletin reporter (whose name was withheld upon request). Yap supposedly called the editor and told him to swap the reporters’ beats.

Bulletin’s managing editor Ding Marcelo, however, said that Yap does not have a say on the reshuffling of reporters. Asked to comment on the alleged pressure from Malacañang, Marcelo said, “I’m not aware of it.”

PJR Reports tried to get the comment of Press Secretary Ignacio Bunye but he did not answer the calls made to him. Tiglao, on the other hand, had already left for Athens last May.

‘Nothing unusual’
Reassigning reporters to other beats is normal practice among newspapers. It is meant to prevent reporters from becoming too familiar with the people they are covering, according to Marcelo.

“There’s nothing unusual about it,” he added.

Cagahastian agreed, “We do the reshuffling from time to time.”

As for Maglalang’s transfer, Marcelo said it was planned several weeks before its implementation.

Marcelo added that it is the editors’ prerogative to inform a reporter a week or two, or even a day before his/her transfer.

“Di na namin kailangang i-explain sa reporter kung bakit,” said Marcelo. “You reshuffle, that’s the standard (practice).”

As of press time, the reshuffling of reporters in Bulletin continues, according to Marcelo.

Colleagues’ reaction
Maglalang’s collegues in Malacañang were surprised by the news as well.

“We’re sorry about what happened to him,” said Lilia Tolentino of the tabloid Pilipino Star Ngayon. But she said if the directive came from Maglalang’s newspaper, there was nothing that could be done about it.

Maglalang’s reassignment was a “big blow to his colleagues in the MPC who have come to appreciate his selfless efforts in providing leadership to the journalists who are regularly covering the Palace,” says Fel Maragay in his May 4 column in the Manila Standard Today.

The Philippine Star’s Paolo Romero said although he acknowledges previous events that might have led to Maglalang reassignment, there was no strong indication of pressure from Malacañang.

“There are many theories as to why it happened. All are plausible,” Romero said.

Romero, the newly elected MPC president, however said there is a divided opinion among Palace reporters. He said that those who believe that Malacañang had exerted pressure on the Bulletin fear that if they become too critical of the government, they might suffer the same fate as Maglalang. But without solid evidence showing there was Malacañang pressure, Romero said the MPC could not make a stand at all.

During former President Fidel Ramos’s term, at least two reporters were said to have been ordered transferred to other beats. The administration reportedly disagreed with the slant of the reporters’ stories, saying these were erroneous. Under the Arroyo administration, Maglalang’s case—if it was indeed the result of Palace pressure—would be the first. Some of his colleagues in the beat fear it would not be the last.

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