Thursday, February 21, 2008 Editorial: Disturbing silence
THE media's probing microscope can only reach as far as any private individual allows. The right to privacy is one of the cherished rights we Filipinos enjoy. A journalist asking questions on matters of personal note can be outrightly dismissed anytime. No explanation needed.
With government officials and employees, however, privacy ends when public matters are at stake. That is why most government officials hold press conferences on regular basis or host public affairs programs in all media imaginable. That is why government officials are prevented from holding office in their homes so that the public can reach them at their appointed offices during office hours. Simply put, the public must know the affairs of state.
Director Mustapha Gandarosa of the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) in Northern Mindanao obviously doesn't get this, or that he could only be feigning ignorance on the fact that he is--as a government official--bound to enlighten the public on the violent altercation that occurred right inside the agency's office last Friday.
Lawyer Nashrollah Conding, BIR-Northern Mindanao OIC Legal Division chief, alleged that Gandarosa and his bodyguards mauled him in view of employees and clients. A number of reporters interviewed him later at the hospital.
Lawyer Conding has a long-standing feud with Gandarosa, but that is not the main point. When members of the local media sought his comment on the matter, they were more interested to know why it happened--of all places--inside a government building. Surely the two can settle their score somewhere else and taxpayers who shoulder the building's rental cost wouldn't care?
Instead, Gandarosa referred all queries to his lawyer, who obviously wasn't a witness to the incident and therefore could only recite the motherhood spiels of denial.
The public could have been served well if it were Gandarosa who shed light on the matter. But, he chose to evade the media for days, and with great success--lending credence to talks that the BIR director reports office in the evening.
The mauling incident inside Gandarosa's own turf may only be the tip of the iceberg. Allegations, backed up with documents, have surfaced that the agency rigged the collection target to make it appear they are performing well in their jobs.
Again, members of the local press were told by his staff to throw the questions to his appointed lawyer-spokesman, who is not even an employee of the BIR and therefore, could not satisfy the technical questions pointing to revenue targets or the agency's over-all performance.
But then this is not the first time that Gandarosa has displayed his unusual allergy against the press, or to anyone he chooses to ignore.
In 2006 he was declared persona non-grata by the Cagayan de Oro City Council for refusing to appear--despite repeated demands -- on a probe pertaining to allegations from the business community that BIR agents were extorting money from them.
Gandarosa can't continue gagging himself, lest he will appear guilty in the eyes of the public he claims to serve.
