Stories dangerous to journalists

IT HAS become dangerous for journalists to write stories about anomalies of public officials. Journalists who do so become the object of harassment.

This is precisely what happened to Inquirer Davao correspondent Jeffrey Tupas who, after making a report about the failure of Bureau of Customs (BOC)-Davao to check on the illegal entry of smuggled rice, has been the subject of a paid advertisement attacking his credibility. The ad was published in the name of the Customs Collectors Association of the Philippines (CCAP).

The National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP)-Davao chapter finds this move of the CCAP alarming. With this ad, it would seem that the CCAP, instead of facing the issue, is set to pull out all the stops to attack the messenger. This move is an affront to press freedom.

It has often been the ploy of many public officials to attack and vilify the media, and accuse them of bias and distorting facts.

But Tupas reported a fact—an irregularity in the BOC-Davao, then headed by Anju Nereo Castigador, which allowed the illegal entry of some 40 container vans that were found to contain thousands of bags of Thailand rice. In the interest of fairness and objectivity, Tupas included in the story the side of the BOC, contrary to the claim of the paid ad.

The issue here is not the writer, it is the BOC itself, which is tasked to collect taxes and duties due on imported goods, and why it failed to do so in this instance. In fact, by failing to fulfill its mandate, the BOC not only undermined the tax collection program of the government; even worse, it betrayed our local rice producers.

NUJP-Davao stands by Tupas and his story. We believe that the intent of the ad was to silence Tupas, and it was highly unfair for the CCAP to single out Tupas whose job is to ensure that public interest is served.

Public officials should know that public service is a public trust; and for this reason, their every action or inaction, whether or not harmful to the government and the public trust, may be subjected to the most rigorous public scrutiny.

As journalists, our bias is for the truth and the public good.

—JESSIE CASALDA, chair,
National Union of Journalists
of the Philippines-Davao,
nujphil@gmail.com