Wednesday, November 28, 2007 Ex-reporter, driver sue ABS
FORMER television reporter Ramil Paican yesterday filed an illegal dismissal complaint against the ABS-CBN network before the National Labor Relations Commission’s Regional Arbitration Branch.
Paican, a steward of the ABS-CBN Rank and File Union, accused his former employers of failing to live by their slogan “Kapamilya.”
“Just imagine, I was terminated from my job as deskman and reporter without due process. The termination was immediately served on us without requiring us to explain our side. Mao na’y kapamilya (Is that what they mean by being part of the family)?” Paican said.
Paican said he could have accepted a penalty of suspension.
He insisted that his news crew’s run-in last September was provoked by Senior Insp. Jose Lidawa, whom he described as drunk, and that he was forced to hit back after the police officer mauled his cameraman four times.
ABS-CBN announced their decision to fire Paican and two other employees last Oct. 2, saying their internal investigation showed that the news crew omitted some facts in the report they aired last Sept. 18. That first made it appear that Liddawa was the only one who berated and attacked the news crew, and that none of the others slugged him back.
The network’s management said that constituted dishonesty and violated their code of ethics. That same week, the PNP ordered Liddawa preventively suspended, while he faced an investigation.
“We served ABS-CBN honestly for 14 years. We worked hard and we did not engage in envelopmental journalism. I think we have the moral ascendancy to seek justice,” Paican said.
He said that station manager Veneranda Cinco Sy and news manager Roda Uy, who recommended the termination of his services, did not even consider their contributions to the company.
Aside from depriving them of their right to due process, Paican said that no copy of the termination order, served by ABS-CBN human relations manager Danny de Guzman, was ever furnished to their union, contrary to what their collective bargaining agreement says.
Rey Paylado, an ABS-CBN driver at the time of the confrontation with Liddawa, also filed an illegal dismissal complaint against the TV network.
Paylado said that ABS-CBN did not even bother to help them when their service vehicle figured in an accident a day before the Liddawa incident.
According to Paylado, because ABS-CBN did not help the victims of the vehicular accident, he had to pawn his mobile phone to pay for hospital bills.
Paylado now earns a living driving a motorcycle in Consolacion, while Paican remains jobless.
“We are planning to join the market in Colon during the Christmas holidays, but we have no capital to start with,” Paican said, adding that in the two months since he was fired, his family has been supported financially by his friends. (EOB)
