Category: media

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 :-(

last-minute blues

there must be another way of handling the comelec registration process.   alam naman natin na may last-minute mentality ang pinoy.   comelec should have expected, and prepared for, the swarm instead of saying, kayo kasi…   lalo na’t merong concessions made to the rich and famous, like satellite ek-eks in kris aquino‘s case, and good old palakasan as in manuel buencamino‘s.   these, while masses of ordinary pinoys without connections had to line up for hours to register, if they were able to at all.    paano ka naman matutuwa sa ganyang palakad.

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i can’t believe people are raving about the noynoy video hindi ka nag-iisa.   what’s so powerful about that torch-lit parade led by noynoy that went nowhere.   i’m like, they love this?   c’mon people, taas-taasan naman ang standards natin.   we already know na hindi siya nag-iisa.   tell us something new, let’s hear him talking platform.   hindi porke anak siya nina Ninoy at Cory ay okay na, siguradong he won’t lie, cheat, or steal.   that’s just too low a bar for a presidential candidate.   i need to hear how he’s going to address the problems of poverty, land reform, environment, education, foreign debt, chacha, atbp.   i will not take him, or anyone, on sheer faith.    i leave that to the pink sisters.

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ayon kay senador nene pimentel tuloy tuloy ang pag-benta ng gma administration ng government assets, tipong ‘midnight sale,’    mostly to raise money pampuno sa napakalaking budget  ng 2009 or puwede ring pangkampanya sa 2010.    whatever, hindi lang pala ang food terminal inc. sa taguig at ang government shares in san miguel corp. at pnoc energy exploration corp. ang ibinebenta.  pati pala the sprawling properties ng national center for mental health at ng welfareville sa mandaluyong, gayon din ng national penitentiary sa muntinlupa city at ng home for the aged sa quezon city, “in complete disregard of their importance in providing vital social government services.”   ano ba yan.   ubos ubos biyaya.   and then what.   pag naubos, nakatunganga.   there must be a smarter way of handling our resources.    let’s demand that presidentiables be honest, yes, but also creative and wise.

environment 5: ormoc & security

ORMOC: TOWARD ECOLOGICAL SECURITY

Junie Kalaw

The Philippine environmental crisis took what is possibly its heaviest and cruelest toll on human life in Ormoc City. According to eyewitness reports by survivors, the waters had come abruptly, almost in the wink if an eye, sweeping everything in its path, a veritable deluge which the camera conveyed as so many bloated bodies floating like so many discarded dolls.

In the comparably torrential rush to absolve itself, the government attributed the denudation of forests in the Ormoc area to logging activities harking as far back as the 1950s, declaring that there hadn’t been any logging in the area in recent years. Media caused more disturbance by reporting intimations from sources within the government itself that politicians, military officials, and Department of Natural Resources (DENR) officials were, in some as yet indeterminate sense, culpable. The partisan character of government’s response once more evaded the fact that ecological responsibility is shared beyond the time-frames of electoral politics; similarly, the readiness of certain quarters within government to blame their cohorts indicates a tendency to pass the buck. But this is the way that government mocks the people’s suffering. We would have been surprised if it got around to pointing out how the geothermal facility in Ormoc contributed to the disaster, for that would have come too close to its plans for Mount Apo in Mindanao.

Our concept of security needs reorienting. We erode fertile topsoil at the rate of one billion cubic meters a year, enough land to produce 10 million sacks of rice. There are 13 badly eroded provinces in the country today that qualify as unrealized security risks. If conditions in one or two areas decline enough to reprise Ormoc next monsoon, will the new administrationsimilarly wash its hands of responsibility?

Disaster relief operations in the country are usually undertaken by the military, who admittedly may be relied upon to fulfill this function. During such occasions, they are said to be diverted from their normal task of overseeing the country’s security. The frequent occurrence, however, of environmental disasters today compels us to ask if the current definition of “normal” military duties requires updating, having been drawn from an old and narrow perspective of national security. Isn’t it time that this old concept be amended to include ecological security, with the army tasked to protect our forests: the navy, our coral reefs and fishing grounds, and the air force our atmosphere?

For far too long, in all countries that have not had the fortune of having a long history of neutrality, the military has competed for resources that have promoted violence instead of peace, its concern being to maintain and modernize its armature, which amounts to a potential for violence. It will be argued, of course, that peace is precisely what is expected to bring about to the extent of adopting a functional rationality in the extreme case of war. However, it may in turn be argued that the concept of war has already changed substantially, as when the government itself speaks of the need to do war against ignorance or poverty, or when an industrial society exports toxic waste to secure its own people’s health, or strains another country’s standards of safety for its own profit.

The idea of ecological security entails the use of information as a weapon and shifts the focus from human targets to natural structures. Securing the integrity of natural structures then becomes a limit beyond which the military becomes obsolete because it will have transformed itself from being an instrument of genocide into a facilitator of the life process

10 November 1991