Crisis: National

Court bars airing of Imbestigador  segment
A SEGMENT of GMA-7’s public affairs program, Imbestigador, was stopped from being shown on May 12 because of a temporary restraining order (TRO).
The TRO was issued by Judge Jacob Malik of the Regional Trial Court in Kapatagan, Lanao del Norte, following a complaint by Rep. Abdullah Dimaporo that the program would bring about “irreparable damage” to the “good name” of his family. He also claimed that the show did not get his side.  Dimaporo added that a mobile phone message had been circulating and saying that the story would focus on his “corruption and greediness (sic).”
Dated May 11, the TRO reached GMA network when Imbestigador’s staff was in the last stages of editing the program.
The National Union of Journalists of the Philippines labeled the restriction “as a clear case of prior restraint.”
In a statement, the organization said, “We do not dispute the Dimaporo family’s right to seek redress if they feel the episode is unfair to them. But we assert that any redress they seek should be after the fact and should not involve [preventing] the airing of an episode that very clearly touches on an issue of public interest.”
Angel Directo, Imbestigador’s associate producer, said the program tried to get an interview with Dimaporo.  She said the congressman initially agreed to an interview, but was later not available. She added Imbestigador had sent a researcher and a cameraman to Lanao del Norte on May 11, but were unable to obtain an interview.
The network was said to have been “under intense pressure” the previous week from the Dimaporos and their go-betweens to kill the story, via “letters, phone calls, and personal visits.”
Lawyer Jose Ibarra of the GMA-7 legal department said that the report’s showing should not have been blocked, noting that a story on the Dimaporos as a political family is “not a private aspect of their lives, but a public fact.”
Theodore Te, a human rights lawyer, said that GMA-7 could have gone on to air the Dimaporos story in spite of the TRO. He said there is a constitutional provision on press freedom which could be invoked if the station is charged with contempt of court.  He also said that the network could have also appealed to the Supreme Court to stop the implementation of the TRO.
GMA-7’s legal department is still awaiting another hearing to settle the case, since the initial summons to determine if the TRO would go beyond 72 hours was set too soon, on May 13.
Dimaporo’s father, Moham-mad Ali, started his political career as Lanao del Norte’s governor, and later served in Congress.  The petitioner, Rep. Dimaporo, is running for a third term in Congress, while his wife, Gov. Imelda Dimaporo, is a congressional candidate for the province’s first district.  Their son Khalid is running to replace his mother as governor.

Foreign journalists barred from interviewing Trillanes
TWO FOREIGN journalists were stopped from entering the Philippine Marines headquarters in Taguig City on May 9 for a pre-arranged interview with Antonio Trillanes IV, a jailed opposition senatorial candidate and former Navy officer.
Douglas Bakshian of the Voice of America and Sebastian Farcis of  Radio France Internationale had no choice but to leave the  camp after failing to get a clearance from the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP).
A local court had allowed Trillanes to grant interviews and to meet with media for his campaign from his detention cell. Trillanes is in prison for leading 321 soldiers in an alleged coup attempt on July 27, 2003. The incident ended after 18 hours when Trillanes and his fellow officers failed to rally support from the rest of the armed forces and the public.
Bakshain said he has never been prevented from getting interviews in military camps in Sulu and at Camp Aguinaldo before.
The Public Information Office (PIO) of AFP, however, insisted that a policy requiring a clearance has been in place “since the 1950s.” When asked for a copy of the policy, Rosenna Robles, chief operations of PIO-AFP, said it was “classified information and not for public consumption.”
In a report on GMANews.TV, Manny Mogato of Reuters and president of the Foreign Correspondents Association of the Philippines, said Lt. Col. Luciardo Obeña, Marine head-quarters battalion commander, showed him a copy of the policy.
“The only problem is we were not informed about this and we have been covering the military for many years,” Mogato said.

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