ONLINE news publication “Bulatlat” yesterday filed an indirect contempt case against the National Telecommunications Commission for the latter’s refusal to comply with a court order to immediately unblock its website.
Bulatlat said that despite service of the writ of preliminary injunction on the NTC on August 18, its website remains inaccessible to subscribers using Globe, Smart, Converge and PLDT internet services as of August 25.
“The continued blocking of its website for more than 48 hours after respondent NTC has been officially served with the writ of preliminary injunction is an outright and inexcusable act of defying a lawful order of the Honorable Court,” Bulatlat said in the petition filed before a Quezon City court.
With this, it said NTC should be cited in indirect contempt of court.
The case is an offshoot of Bulatlat’s plea seeking to nullify the NTC’s memorandum ordering the blocking of access to their website and more than 20 other groups.
The NTC’s move was in response to the communication of then-National Security Adviser Hermogenes Esperon asking it to block access to websites of the Communist Party of the Philippines and its armed wing, the New People’s Army, as well as progressive groups and independent media such as Bulatlat and Pinoy Weekly.
In asking the NTC to block the websites, Esperon cited previous Anti-Terrorism Council resolutions designating the communist movement and some of its alleged members as terrorists.