Alibi we won't buy

A RESPONSE that answered nothing. An alibi that held no water to either sense or reason.
That is the purported clarificatory statement of Atty. Vivian T. Dabu, provincial administrator of Pampanga on the joint manifesto of all media groups in the province deploring the discrimination and arrogance Capitol rank and factotums inflicted upon some of their members last June 30.
By calling the whole affair a “misunderstanding,” Dabu awfully, if not willfully, misunderstood the events that transpired and their ramifications to media practice in Pampanga.
The manifesto charged: “Former Pampanga Press Club President Chris Navarro of Sun-Star Pampanga, Jojo Due of Pampanga News and Romy Barredo of Radio DZME, among others were prevented by Dabu from entering the second floor of the Capitol Building when they tried to cover the entry of Panlilio to the Governor’s Office, citing “I don’t think you need to cover this.”
Dabu wrote: “…access to the second floor of the capitol immediately following the inauguration rites was limited for a brief period of time to give Gov. Among Ed some time to rest and allow him to take flu medications.”
Good try, Attorney. But how would you explain that at the time the local media were being barred from the second floor, crews of GMA-7, ABS-CBN and Infomax were seen moving freely around the place?
Indubitably, if that is not an instance of discrimination, then it is unarguably a case of favoritism. Which amounts to the same thing.
And what about your having been quoted as telling the media: “I don’t think you need to cover this” when all they wanted was a photo-op of the new governor entering his office for the very first time?
The manifesto is correct: “Dabu has no business telling mediamen what to cover or not. This smacks of prior restraint which is anathema to the freedom of the press.”
Any lawyer worth his title surely knows what prior restraint means. You sure do. Don’t you?
The quote attributed to you also gives the impression that at this early you are already fixing limits of coverage at the capitol, and – malicious as sometimes we are – setting hidden closets to cache the skeletons of the Panlilio administration. Whither now goeth the vow of transparency subscribed to by then-candidate Panlilio? Goeth the way of all flesh?
You failed to make any clarification, merely lumping it under the generic “misunderstanding” another – and an even more serious – claim in the manifesto: “A policewoman even physically restrained Due from entering the Capitol building itself while civilian bodyguards wearing “Gov. Eddie Panlilio IDs” arrogantly shooed him away despite Due showing his press identification cards.
The incident goes well beyond the manifesto’s kinder phraseology of “…continuing bias against the local press exhibited by Panlilio’s camp during the election campaign.”
There was physical contact of the non-cordial kind. There was repression. There was a direct assault on press freedom.
So you wrote: “Please rest assured that our intention was never to restrict the media in any way, shape or form as they have and continue to be our partners in public service.”
Rest assured we are. Though not with your statement, but with the fact that the provincial capitol is a public place and therefore ever open to us, not only for being mediamen but for being citizens.
And right again is the manifesto: “That this discrimination and arrogance came right after Panlilio declared the Capitol gates always open to every Kapampangan smacked of the highest duplicity.
“Neither discrimination nor arrogance has any place in public service, nor in civilized society itself.
“This is not only patently immoral but abjectly uncivilized, if not inhuman. And most assuredly unChristian.”
So sorry, but you have misplaced your hope that your statement has clarified the issues. Specific cases or instances can never be clarified by generalized statements.
And also, the next time around be a little more professional in formatting your statement. I do not mean to lecture you but here is how to do it:
At the top of the page but below the name of your office, write PRESS STATEMENT and the date.
Two clicks below it, write the title or a slug of what the statement is all about. It helps to write this in bold letters.
Two clicks below, start with the statement.
Two clicks below the last line of the statement, write REFERENCE: then your name or whoever issued the statement. Under your name, write your contact numbers so that if media wish to clarify more they shall have ready access to you.
Share this with your public information officer. I am sure he/she is clueless about making press statements. Else you would not have done it so amateurishly.