Press Release
December 3, 2007

LOREN CALLS FOR SENATE INVESTIGATION
OF MEDIA ARRESTS IN MAKATI STANDOFF

Senator Loren Legarda yesterday filed a resolution calling for a Senate investigation in aid of legislation into the arrest of journalists who covered the siege of renegade soldiers at the Manila Peninsula Hotel in Makati last November 29.

In her proposed resolution, Loren observed that "legislation may be needed to guide actions of law enforcers in crisis situations to ensure that the rights of media practitioners to responsibly inform the public on events of national significance are not abridged."

A multi-awarded former broadcast journalist, Loren proposed that the Senate Committee on Public Information and Mass Media be authorized to conduct the investigation.

Loren said that remedial legislation may be necessary "to protect the rights of media practitioners in the performance of their profession."

Loren noted that during the siege of the "renegade" soldiers at the hotel, members of the Philippine National Police and the Armed Forces of the Philippines assaulted the hotel's premises, including the throwing of teargas while some journalists and media crew were still inside the hotel.

Citing PNP Police Director General Avelino Razon, Loren said 101 persons were arrested inside the hotel, including some 40 journalists who were covering the event. The journalists who were arrested included newspaper and TV reporters, news anchors, radio reporters and electronic media technical crew.

The journalists were loaded onto a bus in handcuffs and brought to Camp Bagong Diwa in Taguig for "processing" either as "witnesses and suspects," Loren said. She quoted police spokesperson Senior Superintendent Samuel Pagdilao as declaring that the police had to "process" the journalists who covered the event "because it is part of the standard operating procedure" (SOP).

The authorities also justified the arrests by saying that they wanted to make sure that none of the rebels escape by posing as members of the media. They also said that journalists were properly warned to leave the hotel before troops and police "stormed it in a flurry of gunfire and tear gas."

However, according to Loren, the police explanation that journalists should be apprehended for "processing" as part of SOP has been questioned because no journalist had been taken to a police station for "processing" in similar events in the past, including coup d'etats since the time of President Corazon Aquino.

Loren also observed that Philippine and foreign media groups have "slammed the arrests, saying that security forces 'simply went overboard'. Furthermore, media groups have roundly condemned what they said were the illegal arrests of journalists who covered the Makati standoff, saying that such actions by the government posed a serious threat to press freedom and the public's right to know."

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