Category: justice

hearsay not good enough

Court should allow live coverage of Ampatuan trial
Neal Cruz

Why is live coverage by the media of the Ampatuan trial being prohibited? Isn’t that a denial of the public’s right to information? I understand that the judge wants to avoid the circus atmosphere that sometimes descends on an event when competing television networks jockey for vantage points. But that can easily be avoided by assigning one or two pool cameras and limiting them to a small part of the courtroom and then sharing the footage with the other networks. The same goes for print reporters. For the public, closed-circuit cameras can broadcast the trial to TV sets outside.

The alternative is to deny the people the right to view a very important trial. What is being tried here is not a sex crime or a family quarrel where intimate details are dredged up by the lawyers. It is a heinous crime. The accused will not be denied their right to a fair trial. The people have the right to be informed how justice is done, so that they will learn, once more, that crime does not pay.

If the trial is closed to live coverage, people will start suspecting that some hanky-panky is going on, especially because the Ampatuan family is a close ally of the President. So whatever the decision will be, people will suspect that some horsetrading went on.

i so agree.   besides, the accounts of the media personnel privileged to witness the proceedings are just not good enough.   siyempre kulang-kulang sa details.   and you wonder how accurate the quickie summaries are.   nothing beats watching and hearing the proceedings, questions and testimonies, first-hand, in real time, via audio-video recordings.   anything else is hearsay.

Open Ampatuan trial to live coverage,
media and lawyers urge
John Alliage Tinio Morales

MANILA, Philippines – Media and lawyers’ groups on Monday appealed to Judge Jocelyn Solis-Reyes to allow live coverage of the trial of the Ampatuan massacre case.

… At the launching of the People’s Task Force on Maguindanao, Rowena Paraan of the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP) said they are writing a formal letter to Reyes Tuesday, a day before the second hearing into the petition for bail filed by Ampatuan.

She said Supreme Court spokesman Jose Midas Marquez had advised the NUJP to write a letter to Solis instead of filing a formal motion.

…Roan Libarios, governor of the Integrated Bar of the Philippines, said: “We are in support of the request of the NUJP and other media organizations to be allowed access to the court proceedings, subject to some safety nets.”

…At the press conference sponsored by the task force, a reporter from ABS-CBN said the news network had already sent a formal letter to Solis asking for her permission to grant the taking of video footage during the hearing for the petition for bail. But the reporter said Solis denied the request in just a matter of “five minutes.”

Should the judge deny the request made by the NUJP, Paraan said that the group would definitely file a formal motion for the scheduled third hearing on January 20.

Thomas Prado, national secretary of the Integrated Bar of the Philippines, advised the NUJP that its formal letter should be “attached to a formal motion.”

Should Judge Solis again deny the motion for live coverage, Prado said, “I think there is a way to bring it up to the Supreme Court.”

Even the Supreme Court has long settled in its jurisprudence that fears over trial by publicity would not influence the decision of the court of justice, private prosecutor Harry Roque said.

He cited a Supreme Court ruling on the request of the Foreign Correspondents Association of the Philippines for the live radio-TV coverage of the plunder trial against deposed president Joseph Estrada in 2001.

In that decision, the Supreme Court laid three reasons for the televised recording of public events: First, the hearings are of historic significance; second, cases involve matters of vital concern to the people who have a fundamental right to know how their government is conducted; and third, the audio-visual presentation is essential for the education and civic training of the people.

The high tribunalsaid that the live recording of public events is, above all, for “documentary purposes.”

The high court said the recording could be useful in preserving the essence of the proceeding in a way print cannot quite do. It added that the recording could be used by appellate courts in the event of a review.

In the ruling, the magistrates clearly laid out conditions for live media coverage, including the recording of the trial in its entirety, installation of cameras in inconspicuous places, reason of documentary purposes, and the court supervision of the recording.

JV Bautista, former party-list representative and IBP member, said that in theory, trials must always be made public, as long as the media “do not turn the hearing into a circus.”

Quoting US court decisions and academic studies, Roquesaid that the live coverage of public events would compel “everyone included in the hearing to be at their best.”

Prado added that the public could scrutinize the competence of the public prosecutors in the performance of their duties, especially so that “we have rusty public prosecutors.” On the part of the defense, the public can see judge whether the accused is lying or not.

no live coverage of ampatuan trial :(

Supreme Court spokesperson Atty. Midas Marquez said that only 30 accredited media, close relatives and counsels of complainants and defendants would be allowed inside the court room.

“I am asking for everyone’s cooperation. We are doing this for everyone’s sake, we’re not doing this for us, we’re doing this for everyone’s sake: for the accused to have a fair trial and for media to be able to access the hearing. So let us please coordinate and cooperate with one another,” Marquez said in a press conference.

Security will be tight inside the court room as well.

Media would have to pass through three “stations” for security check and proper verification of identification. Only one reporter from each media outfit is allowed inside the court room. No cellular phones, recorders, and other devices are allowed inside the court room, Marquez said.

in a tv newscast i heard marquez saying it was to “avoid trial by publicity”; in an interview by pia hontiveros that i caught the tail of, he was saying it was to avoid a situation like joseph estrada’s impeachment trial that saw people taking to the streets, or something to that effect.

but but but senator rodolfo biazon is right to ask for full media coverage:

“The PNP (Philippine National Police) and the government must give full transparency,” Biazon said. “The executive department must provide transparency to eliminate any doubts, to disprove (speculations) that the Ampatuans are supported by the military and the government.”

“Halimbawa, dapat makita itong trial,yung court hearing na naka schedule na gawin sa Camp Crame. Talagang special na mga nilalang ang mga Ampatuans dahil talagang naghanda pa ng court para sa kanila (For example, this court hearing in Camp Crame must be made public. The Ampatuansare really special because a court has been prepared especially for them),” Biazon pointed out.

hmm.   i wonder if ampatuan’s lawyers have anything to do with this supreme court directive.   suddenly i’m remembering what alex magno said about andal jr.’s very matinik lawyers:

We know now the Ampatuans have hired the best lawyers money could buy — and I have phrased that as carefully as I can.

Those lawyers will throw in every rule in the book, find every loophole in the law and develop every excuse to invalidate evidence. They will fight tooth-and-nail, if not to clear their clients, make it impossible to establish guilt beyond reasonable doubt.

…A judicial ruling, after all, is shaped by the give-and-take of the trial proceedings — not by the strength of conviction in the public mind about the guilt or innocence of the accused.

yeah, this is one of those times when “due process” works in favor of the accused, sorry na lang ang mga biktima.   let’s hope that prosecution witnesses stand firm in their face-off with the notoriously crafty sigmund sigfrid fortun.   too too bad we’re not going to see any of it :-(

calling out cheche

so what’s winston garcia of gsis up to, doing a mike defensor and doing it worse, harassing bullying persecuting no less than the veteran journalist cheche lazaro, who is highly esteemed, widely loved, and multi-awarded for the excellence and relevance of her body of work in broadcast journalism and nation-building?   and don’t tell me that winston garcia is not calling the shots here, because that’s simply not to be believed in the context of either the public teachers’ gsis pension plight or the war between garcia and the lopezes over meralco, or both.

cheche lazaro is right, she did not break the anti-wiretapping law.    she wasn’t a sammy ong or a vidal doble wire-tapping gma’s phone conversations with garci without gma’s and garci’s knowledge.    she was just cheche of probe interviewing a gsis pr lady on her cellphone for a show she was putting together, and yes she recorded the conversation, in the course of which she informed the gsis lady that it was being recorded, and the gsis lady did not stop talking, did not get off the line in protest, so what’s the crime.   the complaint shouldnot have prospered.   there is no wiretapping case.

what there is however is a breach of journalistic ethics.   when cheche aired a part of the recorded conversation without the gsis pr lady’s consent, cheche gave the lady reason to ask,what about my individual right to privacy?

Are the media allowed to violate the individual rights of a person? I was asking the court if the media could simply call you up, record your conversation, and broadcast it for the entire world to hear; all these, without your knowledge, much less, your permission.

…”I am a believer of the significant role journalists play in a democratic system. They are the watchmen, protecting us from wrongdoings taking place both in government and private sectors. But even journalists are not infallible. They can have their share of wrongdoings. And when journalists do wrong, how can we – especially private individuals – protect ourselves from them?”

the gsis pr lady gave cheche tacit approval to record, but not to disclose.   “hindi po lalabas…” and cheche agreed, “no, no…” yet she did put out a part of it, on the convoluted ground that the gsis pr lady had insisted that it be explained to viewers that gsis refused to grant an interview because of biased reporting by lopez-owned media entities.   cheche could simply have shown the official letter refusing the invitation to air the gsis side, she could have highlighted, even read out the pertinent parts, and the message would have been sent as effectively.

given her long history in the business, it surprises that cheche chose to publicize what was clearly off-the-record.   of course journalists hate off-the-record, it usually denies them the satisfaction of scooping a juicy story, but it’s a short-sighted view.    some of the biggest stories of corporate scandals, i am told, have been broken based on information that off-the-record statements led to.    there’s value, too, in something said that you can’t write or broadcast but which you can follow up in private and which might lead to you more info you would otherwise have missed out on.

the question is, why did cheche do it?   freedom of the press?   maybe she thought she could get away with it because the larger issue of gsis’s lack of transparency or the teachers’ well-being is more important than any government official’s privacy?   maybe she thought that off-the-record was an outdated ethic, it doesn’t promote nation-building?   maybe she thought that public opinion would be with her given the low satisfaction ratings of government and its institutions?  but says bong austero:

Lazaro is of course a pillar in broadcast journalism in this country with a sterling reputation both in academe and in media. I am a fan of Lazaro; I think very highly of her work … Being dismayed that someone of her caliber has to go through something like this is a natural gut reaction.

But if we really come to think about it, who Lazaro is and what she stands for is important and relevant but is not a foolproof defense and justification. I dread the idea that anyone who feels wronged cannot file a case against anyone on account of that other person’s reputation. I dread the idea that people likeLazaro is deemed untouchable because of who she is.

Moreover, I think it’s a disservice to automatically rile against the whole case, scream suppression of freedom of the press, and make reckless generalizations about how the case is yet another proof of sinister political machination of the powers-that-be without considering the intrinsic value of the case … the whole case is potentially just as much a chance to validate press freedom given the opportunity it offers to vindicate Lazaro’s cause as it is an opportunity to stress the right to privacy of individuals against the often invasive posturing of media.

and says the daily tribune:

The local media community appears to be divided on the issue on whether the Lazaro case is a case of press freedom or a case of a journalist having violated the rules of journalism, as even an instance of a journalist airing or publishing agreed off-the-record statements of his source is already a breach of journalistic ethics.

It will be recalled that veteran US broadcaster Connie Chung was booted out of the major network in the US a decade ago for having aired an off the record comment made by the mother of then Rep. Newt Gringgich that then First Lady Hilary Clinton was a bitch. This was not regarded as a case of press freedom, but a violation of the rules of journalism.

and says alex magno:

The mass media could be intrusive. It could so easily break into anyone’s privacy and brazenly trample on rights to privacy. There needs to be a finer consensus in the journalistic community over the conduct of interviews and the use of phone conversations, outside the formal setting of an interview, for airing.

On this concern, there is public merit in hearing out the arguments in the case filed against Cheche. Ordinary citizens, not only journalists, have rights too.

a qualified yes.    there is public merit in hearing out the arguments in the case of cheche but only on the question of journalistic ethics, NOT on the bogus and ridiculous wiretapping charges which should be dropped, the arrest order withdrawn, and the bail money returned.   in fairness lang naman.

justice for jun?

totoo ba ito?    judge jorge emmanuel lorredo of the manila metropolitan trial court who first dismissed mike defensor’s complaint of perjury vs. jun lozada is the very same judge pala who issued the arrest warrant, and who yesterday issued an order setting the arraignment on may 7?   well, no wonder he is also ordering mike defensor to drop the charges or else!

ORDER

…. Defensor, on May 7, 2009, when I arraign your enemy, Lozada, you shall have the unique opportunity for cleansing, for healing, for regaining public sympathy. The Court suggests that you do what is right for your sake, for your kids’ sake, for your wife’s sake. I have not talked to Mrs. Defensor, but as an experienced trial judge who deals with human emotions and passions everyday in my courtroom, I am sure that Mrs. Defensor wants peace and good health for you.

Why this case is not to the best interest of the first couple-

Since Defensor is not a trial lawyer, he apparently has not seen the very explosive potential of this case: the first couple (Gloria and Mike Arroyo) may validly and legally be dragged into the proceedings by Lozada’s defense team. All that the defense team has to do is invoke certain provisions of the Rules of Court. As a fair and impartial judge, I shall have no reason not to grant such request.

It is true that evil, cruel and vindictive regimes can use the law to make their enemies suffer, but it is that very same set of laws that can enable the oppressed (to) fight back. Such is the beauty of the law: that is why many have fallen in love with the law and have become lawyers or judges. As a child, I have dreamed of one day becoming a judge, to apply the law not to destroy lives, but to make lives better. Now, I am in that position, with the help of God. I dispense justice everyday with the aid and guidance I always seek from our Lord.

When this case goes to trial, I will of course allow the prosecution every opportunity to prove its case beyond reasonable doubt.

When it is the turn of the defense to present evidence, I will also allow the defense every opportunity to raise reasonable doubt or to destroy each and every element of the felony of perjury.

Andif there is a motion to present president Gloria or first gentleman Mike Arroyo as hostile witnesses in order for accused Lozada to establish, I will not hesitate to issue the corresponding subpoena compelling the first couple to testify as hostile witness for the defense.

If Gloria and Mike refuse to obey the subpoena, I will not hesitate to issue the warrants of arrest against them because it is the constitutional right of Lozada to have the best possible defense. And it is my duty as trial judge to see to it that there is due process in my court.

If the police officers refuse to serve the arrest warrants because Gloria is their boss, then I will be forced to deputize other public officers to serve and implement the arrest warrants.

I need not search hard nor should I wait long, for Manila Mayor Lim and the many senators who wish to take Lozada into their custody may move that they be deputized. Some of these people are lawyers, some of them have extensive police experience, like Mayor Fred Lim and Senator Ping Lacson. They can arrest, handcuff and put behind bars any fugitive.

They are no match against the PSG, the Presidential Security Group? What if Sen. Trillanes and his comrades join the mission to arrest? Get the picture, Mr. Railroadman Defensor?

Defensor, just imagine how powerful a message that would (be) for our people and for the whole world. And just imagine how that would affect the first couple.

I now suggest to Mike Defensor not to think only of himself in his perjury case. The welfare of the first couple is also involved, as discussed above.

I invite everyone who may come across this order to pray for both Defensor and Lozada, so there may be peace between them.

Please pray also for me, so that I may always be a good, humble, God fearing and very wise Judge to those who seek justice in my courtroom; and so that I may be elevated from a Judge to a Justice (even though I do not have any political backers) for that would surely make my late father, Jorge Lorredo, Jr. (who is now with Jesus in heaven watching me with a smile on his face) and my mother, Mary Lorredo, very proud of their only child.

So ordered.

May 4, 2009.

JORGE EMMANUEL M. LORREDO
Presiding Judge

i expected, thought, that lozada would be tried by manila regional trial court judge cicero jurado jr. who reversed lorredo’s dismissal and ruled that lozada be taken into custody.   where is judge cicero jurado jr?   bakit nawala siya sa picture?   what’s going on?    alam ba ito ni defensor?    inilaglag na ba si defensor?   or are we being taken for a ride a la lozada?