WE ACKNOWLEDGE the fact that Davao City Police Director Vicente Danao aired a public apology to the three newspaper reporters that he bawled out inside his office for an hour last Monday; all because one of them got needed information on the Richard L. King's murder from due diligence, information that Danao claimed had not reached him yet.
A one-hour rant full of invectives and threats in front of three very scared reporters is an act that cannot easily be forgiven because of a public apology. Rather, it is an act that should never be repeated ever again and to ensure that, proper decorum while in office and beyond is what we are demanding and not just a spoken apology.
May we point out too, that in cursing our reporters, the policeman not just cursed three individuals, but three legitimate media companies. We didn't hear anything said about that. By treating our reporters like criminals, Danao besmirched the names of our companies and our profession as journalists.
Suffice it to say that after this, we will be watching, very closely, how the police treat journalists to ensure that the impunity by which Danao cursed our young reporters will never be happen again. It goes without saying that we too have always been keeping tabs of how Sun.Star Davao reporters behave in public and how they practice their profession with highest dignity.
Danao says he's just human, and as we've often been told, to err is human.
Guess what? We too, are human and have no illusion of being divine.
Thus, while we acknowledge his apology, acceptance is withheld because what happened is just a manifestation of the low regard police officers have of professional journalists. We can never let this pass just like that.