Press Release
February 28, 2009

Chiz: No reason to fear media if one is doing the right thing

Senator Francis "Chiz" Escudero today said that public servants and anyone who makes the news have no reason to fear media if they are doing the right thing.

"I've always believed that ever since I became a politician. Public servants, as they say, live in glass houses, and they must steel themselves from criticism, however unfair, while in public service," he said in a statement.

"When one does the right thing, one does not need to fear media," Escudero said.

In voting for the bill, the senator said that what he wanted was full ventilation of the issues, which the proposed measure sought to address. Irresponsible and malicious reportage or commentaries, the presence of scalawags in media, are an admitted fact by practitioners of the craft, he said.

Because of this current public debate over Pimentel bill, the opposition senator said, the media is given the opportunity to put in place mechanisms which will address the issues raised in the proposed law.

"We cannot legislate responsibility," he said even as he pointed out that this is not the first time that a right-to-reply bill has been filed with the Senate.

Escudero disclosed that Senators Ambrosio Padilla, Mamintal Tamano, and Rene Espina sponsored a similar bill, Senate Bill No. 903, in the pre-martial law Senate.

The issues raised in the Padilla, Tamano and Espina bill, are basically the same issues replicated in the Pimentel-Puentevella measure, he said.

He said that the National Press Club at that time, then led by Eddie Monteclaro, pointed out that "the right to reply is better realized through editorial discretion and voluntary acts rather than through forcible dictation through state machinery which infringes upon a basic freedom."

According to Escudero, the NPC position paper also said:

"The proper remedy for public officials or private persons who may be aggrieved by any publication or radio-tv broadcast is to file criminal charges for libel or slander, should they feel that such publication or broadcast commentary had violated their right to a good name or reputation.

"The remedy does not lie in dictation or the curtailment of editorial discretion in the evaluation of news items or articles, or in requiring broadcast commentators to say something they may not want to say, which are essential elements of free speech and press."

Escudero said that the Padilla bill did not prosper and languished at the committee level, and was eventually overtaken by the imposition of martial law.

"Many of my Senate colleagues have began to express misgivings in voting for the bill," he said. "The issues have been joined. It is time for closure. It did not pass the first time, it will not pass this time," he declared.

"This bill, if passed, might end up being used by the unscrupulous and corrupt, who have the means, to handcuff the media. It puts an additional burden on media which is already saddled with a libel law that treats journalists as criminals," he said.

"I have decided to cross the line, I will stand on the side of press freedom," Escudero said."

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