Fighting media

THE protest rally at the capitol Friday last week was not the first ever staged by Pampanga mediamen. And, most assuredly, it would not be the last.

For the record, it was the fourth such action in response to repression, intimidation, discrimination, human rights violations and even physical assault inflicted on the local press.

“Save media, oust Camua” cried the locals in May 1990 as they took to the Balibago strip and marched to Clark Air Base demanding the sacking of Cabcom deputy commander Brig. Gen. Demetrio Camua. This was in the aftermath of the May Day rally that found among the casualties a number of mediamen.

My account headlined “Clark soldiers brutalize newsmen” appearing in Afternoon HEADLINE dated May 2, 1990 goes:

“FREEDOM of the press died before the main gate of Clark Air Base yesterday, slain by soldiers of the Republic – those very people sworn to uphold and protect it.

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“What brought a spine-tingling sensation among mediamen was the presence of a special force noted to have specifically picked on those wearing press tags and vests, methodically going about their job of bashing heads and breaking shins. Why this “special treatment” of mediamen?

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“The local media have been vocal about perceived irregularities at Clark, allegedly involving Cabcom troopers. Alleged carnap syndicates, the mess in the garbage disposal contracts, widespread theft and robbery, and the “illegal detention” of 32 heads of cattle by Cabcom soldiers have been staple news in many local publications as well as in correspondents’ stories in the Manila papers.

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“Camua and his running dogs have become the scourge not only of peaceful demonstrators but of mediamen. The earlier they leave Clark, the better for us all, said Fyodor Fabian, spokesman of NUJP-Pampanga.”

From the gates of Clark, the media protest reached the halls of Congress where a special committee hearing was conducted and the Cabcom severely reprimanded.

Camua made the appropriate recompense for those hurt in the mayhem and staged a grand formation and parade in-review of the Cabcom for the local mediamen where he extended his sincerest apologies to them. It did not take long before he was yanked out of his command though.

In 1998, the local media held a rally before the corporate offices of the Clark Development Corp. denouncing the high-handedness of CDC director Mina Paras. “Arrant Mina” I wrote of her in the then-Sun-Star Clark.

The rally culminated with the return by the media of the bottles of white wine given them by the CDC in a previous fellowship lunch.

Paras failed to get the then proposed post of vice president for media affairs.

Last year, it was the turn of Angeles City Police chief Sr. Supt. Policarpio Segubre to be at the receiving end of media ire. Apart from his devoted incompetence, Segubre had this complexed boorishness in dealing with media.

Mayor Tarzan Lazatin saved Segubre’s skin in a series of set dialogues and informal meetings with the mediamen, even as the cop chief practically did a double somersault to mend his ways. In six months, his post was taken over by Sr. Supt. Sonny Cunanan.

It was not only through protest rallies that media waged its wars. This, a cursory scan of the pages of my first book Of the Press (1999) would show.

There was in 1988 the “Abad Santos Aggression” when lumpen minions of the Angeles City mayor swooped down on radio station DZYA and leveled their automatic weapons at the heads of Sonny Lopez then of Malaya and this writer then of People’s Journal/Tonight while on air exposing the irregularities that had become the hallmark of the Abad Santos administration.

Abad Santos lost miserably in the 1992 elections.

Subjected to armed harassment after hitting jueteng in Angeles City and Mabalacat in 1984, Ody Fabian had to comfort himself with a .45 given him by his friend, Constabulary Maj. Rey Cabauatan.

The jueteng lord Fabian exposed had long since gone to parts unknown.

In 1983, Candaba Mayor Gonzalo Martin hurled threats and invectives at Jerry Lacuarta and challenged him to a mano-a-mano even as a 9-mm Llama was tucked in his back pocket.

In less than a year Martin was killed by his own gun in a freak accident. The mayor got into his car, slammed the door which hit the cocked gun in his pocket.

Ding Cervantes of Philippine Star had a bolitas embedded in his body – courtesy of a security guard at the fermentation plant in Apalit denounced for polluting the Pampanga River.

Central Fermentation Industrial Corp. has long been cut literally to its very foundation. Only the concrete floor remained a mute witness to its once high production and higher polluting rate.

There are more battles that the Pampanga media have fought and still fight. Pity those they have tangled with in the past. There is a lesson to be learned here for Gov. Eddie T. Panlilio and Atty. Vivian Dabu.

The capping paragraph for the third chapter of Of the Press titled “Waging War” is succinct enough:

“Fighting with the local media is pointless. For one, they always have the final say. Two, it is their job to maintain an adversarial stance. Going over all the wars and pocket rebellions waged – even with the libel cases filed against them and ultimately dismissed – there shows up one definitive indication: YOU DON’T MESS WITH THE PAMPANGA PRESS AND GET TO LIVE HAPPILY EVER AFTER.”