Government agents use reporter to access Sulu Sultan’s home

CMFR/Philippines – Alleged agents of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) posed as members of a TV news crew so they could enter the house of Sulu Sultanate head Datu Abdul Kiram III in Taguig City, Metropolitan Manila last 6 March 2013.

TV5 reporter Carla Lim reported that NBI agents called her asking about the situation at the Taguig home of the Kirams. Lim said in an AksyonTV report that the NBI asked if they could join her at the Kiram residence to observe the situation personally. Lim obliged, and even told members of the Kiram family that NBI agents were coming with her.

Lim was at the Sulu Sultan’s home as part of TV5’s coverage of the ongoing conflict between members of the ‘Royal Sulu Sultanate Army’ and Malaysian police in Sabah. Sabah has been the subject of a territorial dispute between the Philippines and Malaysia since the 1930s. The Sulu Sultanate has been asserting its rights over a large part of Sabah, or North Borneo, saying that it is part of their ancestral domain.

When the alleged NBI agents arrived, they asked Lim to introduce them as part of the TV5 news crew, but the reporter refused to do so.  However, the three NBI agents still went ahead and posed as members of Lim’s crew. Surprised, Lim berated the NBI agents and later explained the truth to the Sultanate family.

AksyonTV, in the same report, quoted justice secretary Leila De Lima as denying that the NBI and its director, Nonnatus Rojas, had ordered agents to go to the Kiram’s home. She said that she is verifying if the three men are registered NBI agents.

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