Friday, May 16, 2008
Seares: Listing smugglers
By Pachico A. Seares
News Sense
LAW enforcement agencies and security units keep lists to identify "enemies" and "targets" so they can be neutralized, if they can't be put away yet.
Police, NBI, military, PSG, PDEA, PASG: Each has a list of people they watch and pile dossiers about---crime suspects, drug lords, illegal gambling operators, rebels, terrorists, threats to the President, smugglers.
Even p.r. practitioners keep lists of media persons, friendly and hostile, as guide in handling them.
One time an American embassy official visited Cebu and look what he had on his desk as he parried questions: a list of journalists, with a note opposite each name, like "can be persuaded" or "wily."
One such wily reporter, the official didn't know, could read upside-down text. A story in the next day's paper wasn't about US-RP relations but the visitor's list of Cebu reporters and how the Americans rated them.
Leak
Most lists of "enemies" and "targets" aren't supposed to be publicized.
Leaked lists can be embarrassing to list keepers. For some time American embassy staffers must have been briefed on secrecy of lists with the Cebu incident as textbook example.
Leaked lists can be unfair to the people listed. Most materials are raw, unverified, double or triple hearsay.
PASG, the Palace anti-smuggling group, has refused to reveal its list of Cebu's top six car smugglers. It has little evidence against them and PASG might be sued for libel, PASG chief Antonio Villar said.
Libel complaint won't stand in court against revelations in Congress but publicizing the list will only create anuproar without proving guilt or innocence.
For Bisaya stories from Cebu. Click here. (May 16, 2008 issue)
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