Carlos H. Conde » The Arroyo Regime’s Campaign of Intimidation Against the Philippine Press

By Carlos H. Conde

While I am one with my colleagues in the press daring the Philippine National Police and the Department of Justice to file charges against Jiji Press correspondent Dana Batnag for allegedly helping Capt. Nicanor Faeldon escape at the height of the Manila Pen siege, I think such a dare is pointless. Simply because filing a case against Batnag is never the point of all this brouhaha.

If they have a case against Batnag, the authorities could have filed it early on. What they did instead was to intimidate members of the press, to put them on the defensive, particularly at a time when they have taken action to make the police accountable for arresting dozens of them during the siege and to question the legality of Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez advisory-cum-threat against the media.

But as the video released by RPN-9 shows, there’s nothing in what Batnag and Faeldon were doing that would suggest that they were talking of any escape plot. If anything, it shows that Batnag was just doing her job — interviewing Faeldon in the middle of a crowd, in full view of everybody. I didn’t see Batnag handing over a press card to Faeldon, as the PNP asserted.

What this is, really, is a campaign of intimidation against the press. It serves several purposes. One, it, as I said, puts the media on the defensive. It is a threat to those journalists who have sources within the reformist faction in the military. (Two journalists who fit this category, based on their published output, are Ellen Tordesillas of Malaya and Ces Drilon of ABS-CBN — and they’re the first to raise hell about the PNP’s earlier intrigue that a woman helped Faeldon.) Moreover, any journalist who’s thinking about interviewing these idealistic officers and men of the military will now think twice.

Two, it seeks to justifies the police action against the arrested journalists during the Pen siege. I can almost hear PNP chief Avelino Razon say, “See? We told you so!”

Three, it took attention away from the fact that the police failed to catch Faeldon. Indeed, all this is meant to shift the blame for Faeldon’s escape — from the bungling “Mamang Pulis” to the journalist who was just doing her job.

But it would do us good to step back and look at this issue from a larger perspective. I got a text message from a colleague this morning that says the Batnag-Faeldon issue is just part of the Arroyo administration’s campaign to destroy democratic institutions. I couldn’t agree more.

This regime has destroyed our election, military, police and bureaucratic institutions. It set its targets on the press a long time ago but is now taking the battle to a higher level. What this shows is that this regime is determined to silence those who dare to criticize or question its policies and actions. (Carlos H. Conde/PinoyPress)