Tuesday, August 10, 2004 Military chief to meet local media By Jun Feliciano
SOUTHERN Command chief Major General Generoso Senga will meet with the local press in his maiden news conference since his July 16 assumption as the highest military commander in the Mindanao region.
One of the major highlights is to enlighten media practitioners, covering the military beat, on their vital role in shaping the community through information dissemination.
"We have a lot of things to discuss with the media here during the expected maiden press conference with our Southcom commander (Gen. Senga), a Southcom military officer revealed.
He said by the time their Southcom information officer Major Bartolome Bacarro shall have arrived anytime this week from a week-long Civil Military Operations (CMO) conference attended by various military spokesmen from the Pacific region, held last August 2, in Hawaii, the scheduled press conference will most likely push through.
He gave an advanced hint for the media to take a cue that General Senga will touch on recent stories printed and broadcast by tri-media outfits here and abroad that were allegedly either "exaggerated or sensationalized to the detriment of their military unit here."
"We appeal to the media here not to exacerbate the situation in the are by sensationalizing their stories," the military officer declared.
He cited the recent capture of Binang Andan (earlier reported as Binang Andang) as gravely distorted by media by wrongly claiming that he is a cousin of Galib Andang, alias commander Robot, who presently detained in a military camp in Manila following his arrest last year.
"He is in no way related to Comdr. Robot, nor was he linked to the mass abduction of the 52 pupils and teachers in Tumahubong, Sumisip, Basilan in 2000. He was even mentioned as behind the reported beheading of Catholic priest Fr. Rhoel Gallardo," the officer lamented.
He said witnesses in the 2000 Basilan mass hostage taking by Abu Sayyaf came out in the open and cleared Binang Andan from the said mass kidnapping.
"Andan, not Andang, is indeed an Abu Sayyaf follower, but he was not involved in the Basilan kidnappings. He is only a small fry in the Abu Sayyaf organization with a minimal bounty on his head," the same officer clarified.
Andan, according to the military official, hails also from Sulu and that his activities linked to the Abu Sayyaf were confined in the said place.
He also cautioned the media not to put words into the mouth of their military general who usually takes the printed or broadcast stories "in stride although surprised," the officer revealed.
"But these will be threshed out, in the forthcoming press conference with Com-Southcom, and I hope the media realize such predicaments. We want them (media) to come into better arrangements without curtailing at all the rights of the press. We respect the freedom of the press but it should be done in the right perspective," he stressed.
(August 10, 2004 issue) Write letter to the editor.Click here. Join the Sun.Star message board.Click here.
