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Sunday, September 25, 2005
Media group hits teachers for ‘repression’
By Dante M. Fabian
THE Pampanga Press Club (PPC) Saturday condemned eight teachers from the Sindalan High School based in San Fernando City “who illegally detained, heaped verbal insults and threatened to seize the video tape of two media practitioners.”
“The details of the incident left us no room to doubt that what the teachers did were clear forms of media repression,” said PPC president Ashely Manabat.
In a complaint, Lanie Ontong, news supervisor of the cable television channel Infomax 8, and her cameraman Ignacio Orejas said the teachers, led by Ariel Garcia and a certain Cindy, held them against their will at the school’s registrar’s office last Friday on the premise they had no permit from the principal to take video clips.
“Don’t leave yet. We are calling up the police,” recalled the two who objected to being treated like criminal suspects.
Ontong and Orejas said they came to interview the principal, Alfredo Sianen, whom the parents-teachers association accused of alleged corruption and physical abuse. They sought Sianen’s side a day after receiving a copy of the complaint filed with the Department of Education (DepEd) Regional Office.
Since the principal was then attending a meeting at the city school division office, the two media practitioners reset the interview and decided in the meantime to take video footages of the school.
“It’s a public place. We are a legitimate media organization. And we properly identified ourselves by wearing our media IDs during the conduct of our work,” Ontong said. Infomax is a duly registered media organization, a member of the Philippine Cable Television Association and a soon-to-be affiliate of ABS-CBN Channel 2.
Ontong heads the Informax News, a daily news program since 2003.
As if the shout of Garcia and Cindy were not enough, a female teacher who refused to identify herself told Ontong and Orejas in a sarcastic tone that they were “to be pitied because (you) did not know how media practitioners should conduct themselves.”
They were released 20 minutes later on the intervention of Mayor Oscar Rodriguez whom PPC member and Infomax consultant Tonette Orejas requested to help.
“I find it uncalled for on the part of educators to treat professional and honest journalists like Ms. Ontong and Mr. Orejas in this very rough manner,” Rodriguez said. The mayor urged city school officials to look into the incident.
Maureen Aquino, Infomax general manager, said the company is filing criminal and administrative charges against the teachers as a way of teaching the public-at-large on media treatment.
Manabat said the PPC will act against the first, even slight, signs of media repression to protect press freedom.
“We can never let this incident pass. If these teachers treat the media this way, I don’t know how they do to ordinary students,” he said.
(September 25, 2005 issue)
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