AFTER a suspect in the May 31 killing of radio commentator Cris Bunduquin surfaced last week, the Presidential Task Force on Media Security (PTFoMS) is now helping authorities solve another attack on a newsman, this time a photographer of the tabloid Remate.
On June 29, fotog Rene Joshua Abiad was traveling with his family in their SUV in Barangay Masambong, Quezon City when two armed men shot their vehicle multiple times. Abiad, the target of the assailants, was hit in the hand and shoulder. Abiad’s wife Elizabeth, brother Renato, and an 8-year-old nephew also suffered bullet wounds. Another nephew, 4 years old, was badly hit and died in the hospital on July 1. A bystander identified as Jeffrey Cao was also hit by a stray bullet.
Too often, journalists especially those working in provincial radio and print media, have been at the receiving end of violence and it made sense for the past administration to establish the PTFoMS to institutionalize an agency under the Department of Justice and working closely with the Presidential Communications Office to defend members of media from harm.
Several of these violent incidents were not job-related, as when a radio commentator is also a local politician who was buying airtime to extend his reach, or when an activist environmentalist or a labor leader is gunned down for his advocacies but it so happens that he, too, writes a newspaper column.
‘“… the need for the presence of members of the press during anti-drug operations and inventory of seized evidence has become unnecessary…”’
The PTFoMS is working on the theory that the attack on Abiad might be connected to his being a witness of the police and the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) in a drug buy-bust case. The Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act requires the presence of media and barangay officials during inventory of evidence seized in anti-illegal drug operations.
The National Union of Journalists of the Philippines, which condemned the shooting, said “while agreeing to be a witness in drug operations is commendable and no doubt done out of a sense of civic duty, NUJP has long cautioned against the practice because it puts colleagues at risk.”
Undersecretary Paul M. Gutierrez, PTFoMS head, leads the call for Congress to amend provisions of RA 9165 by removing the presence of members of the press during anti-drug operations and inventory of seized evidence.
“Given the advances in technology and with the Supreme Court already mandating the Philippine National Police and other law enforcement agencies to use body cameras in some of their operations, the need for the presence of members of the press during anti-drug operations and inventory of seized evidence has become unnecessary,” Gutierrez said.
Gutierrez further noted that as far back as Nov. 23, 2018, the National Press Club had petitioned Congress to amend RA 9165. Amending the law has become urgent with the shooting of Abiad and his family members.
It is time for Congress to heed the call of Usec Gutierrez, the PTFoMS, the NPC and the NUJP, groups that have quarreled before on certain issues but are solidly united on this one.
