You can get shot for that, official tells reporter

CMFR/PHILIPPINES –An official of a government agency in Cagayan de Oro City told a reporter here that journalists pursuing stories based on “unverified complaints” can get shot.

During an interview with the reporter, Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) Regional Director Edgar Sales allegedly became angry when Lito Rulona began asking questions on how to obtain documents on an agency project.

Rulona, a correspondent of The Mindanao Gold Star Daily, interviewed Sales on July 2 about the Sustainable Livelihood Program (SLP). SLP is a joint project of TESDA and the Department of Social Welfare and Development aimed at helping beneficiaries of the government poverty relief program Pantawid Pamilya acquire marketable skills.

Rulona said he had received information about the allegedly uneven distribution of funding to technical and vocational schools under the SLP. When he inquired how he could obtain copies of SLP-related documents, Sales allegedly “flared up.”

“That’s an unverified complaint,” Sales reportedly told Rulona in the local dialect. “Why did they send their complaints to the press instead of reporting directly to us, since we could have talked about it?”

According to Rulona, Sales went on to say that members of the media who have been shot had been reporting unverified complaints.

“Ano bang pinapahiwatig niya (What is he hinting at),” Rulona told CMFR in a phone interview. “Para bang because of this complaint matulad ako doon sa iba dahil unverified complaint yung kine-cater ko (That I would share the same fate as other journalists who were attacked because I catered to (sic)  an unverified complaint)?”

Cagayan de Oro Press Club (COPC) has demanded  an explanation from Sales. COCP president Jerry Orcullo said the director should be accountable for what he said was  “a veiled threat to the reporter.”

“By and large, it is media harassment and an affront to press freedom,” Orcullo said in a text message. “Those were dangerous words considering the unabated killing of journalists in the country.”

CMFR tried to contact Director Sales but he had yet to reply as of press time.

A hundred and forty-seven (147) journalists and media workers have been killed for their work in the Philippines since 1986. Two have been killed so far this year. A 2006 CMFR study found that 90 percent of those killed were reporting on public sector corruption and criminal syndicates.