[] In December 1992, the House congressional committee on public information investigated, “in aid of legislation,” an alleged conspiracy called "Operation Day One" to smear the then new Cebu governor, Vicente de la Serna, by corrupting local media. More than three decades hence, Congress still has to produce a law.
[] The Cebu investigation may be the first and only inquiry ever conducted by Congress on alleged media corruption.
A CODE OF ETHICS. Proponents of the hearing announced they’d “institutionalize” a national code of ethics for media, which would’ve been constitutionally questionable as Congress had no power to legislate such rules without infringing on press freedom. A Cebu media group reminded the House committee that the code must come from media itself: their respective newsrooms or news organizations. Until now, the idea of a legislated code of ethics has not evolved into a bill and law. Yet many community news organizations are guided by their own code or that of the press association they belong to, such as the Philippine Press Institute. SunStar adopted its own Code of Standards and Ethics in 1991, a year before the 1992 congressional hearing in Cebu, and amended it in 2004.
TARGET OF 'CONSPIRACY.' Governor de la Serna, who was purportedly the target of the “media conspiracy,” said he was “satisfied” with the hearing outcome because the SunStar publisher admitted that “payola is a reality for some media men who’re not well paid,” which the publisher denied and contradicted. This still didn’t resolve the question of whether the specific allegation of media corruption was true.
UNRESOLVED PROBLEM. The issue of “Operation Day One” against de la Serna was not resolved. One House committee hearing couldn’t and didn’t thresh out the problem of corruption in media. Even the journalists themselves have not, as succeeding events tended to show.
IT 'DIVIDED' MEDIA. One congressman reportedly said the issue divided media, which, he said, “saddened” him. And it will continue to be divisive as the few who are suspected to have been corrupted are not likely to join or sympathize with those who aren’t corrupted. Understandably, they can’t openly denounce the corruptors -- mostly politicians themselves or their allies or supporters, according to one columnist who commented on the issue.
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PERSONS IN 'OPERATION DAY ONE' DRAMA. First, the politicians:
The Cebu governor, the late Vicente L. de la Serna (1992-1995 term), who in that year just defeated in the 1992 May election the wife of his predecessor Emilio M.R. “Lito” Osmena (1988-1992 term).
Then congressman and former Bogo mayor, the late Celestino Martinez Jr., “exposed” “Operation Day One” in the House of Representatives, using a 1986 story linking three columnists to an alleged KBL “propaganda group.” He moved for a congressional inquiry, which the House conducted in Cebu City on December 18, 1992.
And there was Rolando Puaben, one of Guv Tingting’s trusted persons, who reportedly convinced the then new governor there was a media plot called “Operation Day One” to smear De la Serna’s name. His source: a “media man,” who later came out and publicly admitted that it was just a rumor he told Puaben eight years before.
THE 1986 STORY. Three SunStar newspaper columnists who also worked as news correspondents of Manila-based newspapers were named in a SunStar story of April 5, 1986, bylined Eileen G. Mangubat. Two of the columnists publicly denied involvement; the third couldn’t be reached by the reporter but later reportedly said the purported document about the “plot” was spurious. After the Martinez speech in the House in 1992, which created a tempest in the Cebu media community, Puaben was interviewed by a news reporter, to whom he denied he had talked with congressman Martinez or given him any document pertaining to “Operation Day One.” Puaben believed the congressman may have obtained information from “another person who attributed it to him (Puaben).” Later, Puaben denied he made the denial.
'NOT AN INVESTIGATION.' Despite the apparently not-solid basis for it, the House committee on public information held a hearing in Cebu. First scheduled for December 14, 1992, it was finally held on December 18; instead of a hotel, the venue was the Capitol session hall.
What made it unusual was that it was held out of the country’s capital or the seat of Congress -- and more extraordinarily, it looked into media conduct, which under the press freedom ambit was beyond its authority legally or traditionally.
Even as the purpose of the House committee hearing was accusatory -- allegation of conspiracy of some media members with politicians and pay-off -- then congressman Junnie Martinez told Capitol reporters on November 27, 1992, the hearing “wouldn’t be an investigation but would be a venue to hear the side of the people allegedly involved in media corruption.”
Martinez complained, during the hearing and before it, of concerted attacks against him, denying though that the House inquiry was aimed to (a) hit back at critics of de la Serna and the congressman and (b) to “sidetrack” an incident in which Junnie allegedly slapped a traffic volunteer, an issue over which then Cebu City mayor and Martinez critic Tomas Osmeña made a lot of noise.
AIDING LEGISLATION AS PURPOSE. Congressional authority to investigate anything and anyone “in aid of legislation” is not a new power or novel procedure that the House of Representatives and the Senate have just found useful and interesting and the nation has come to tap as a source of entertainment and information.
Recent televised or streamed legislative inquiries into town mayor Alice Guo’s citizenship fraud scandal and the alleged misspending of public funds in the Office of the Vice President and Department of Education have drawn national attention.
Congressional hearings purportedly seek to inform the senators and congressmen on the bills that are filed to become law of the land.
The main purpose, though, is often derailed or obscured by other considerations not entirely noble or patriotic. Politics and its side interests tend to get into it, if it’s not the principal reason for dragging into the halls of Congress -- and the national stage -- enemies of a political administration, party, or clan and the issue that would help push partisan causes and well-being.
True or not, suspicion of ugly motives would taint the congressional inquiry sought and obtained by politicians with axes to bury their enemies.
'PACKED SESSION HALL.' A Page 1 December 19, 1992 banner story in what was then SunStar Daily, bylined Edralyn L. Benedicto, said the committee headed by Rep. Jesus Dureza was held at “a packed Capitol social hall.”
None of the journalists formally invited by the committee showed up. The invitees included the three columnists cum news correspondents, along with Kapisanan ng mga Brodkaster ng Pilipinas (KBP) Cebu president Manny Rabacal and Manuel Satorre Jr., then editor of Newstime Daily.
Governor de la Serna attended the hearing; so did Reps. Antonio Cuenco, Eduardo Gullas, and Raul del Mar from Cebu, as well as Reps. Erico Aumentado of Bohol and Dante Liban of Quezon City.
Among the lawyers present were Clavel Asas-Martinez, wife of Rep. Celestino Martinez; Jesus Garcia Sr., publisher of SunStar Daily and the paper’s chief legal counsel; and lawyer-broadcaster Miguel Enriquez, representing the then CCML or Cebu Council of Media Leaders. (The three lawyers are also deceased, with former congresswoman Clavel’s passing away at 82 on January 20, 2025.)
FOCUS: ALLEGED MEDIA MANIPULATION, FALSE INFORMATION, CORRUPTION. Specifically, the legislators wanted to look into the allegation that came from their own ranks, particularly Cong Martinez, who repeated the charge he had earlier raised outside Congress that some columnists waged a smear campaign against him and were peddling false information in collusion with and order from his political rivals.
According to the Edralyn Benedicto story of December 19, 1992, the House committee zeroed in on SunStar and submitted at the committee hearing the same materials, mostly news clippings, he had given in a press conference last month showing alleged media manipulation activities of some SunStar columnists in 1986. Martinez, the Benedicto story said, also presented as “evidence” the papers showing SunStar’s previous ownership by Anos Fonacier, “a Marcos crony.”
MEDIA RESPONSE TO HOUSE HEARING. [] SUKNA RESOLUTION: Sukna -- short for Sugboanong Komentarista nga Nagpakabana, an association of commentators mostly from broadcast -- in a December 1, 2022 resolution opposed “any congressional investigation of media.” Sukna expressed “solidarity and trust with the management of SunStar Daily and other tri-media outlets in their capability to maintain objectivity and fairness in upholding press freedom.”
[] SUNSTAR COMMENTS: An October 7, 1992 top-of-opinion-section piece “from the editor-in-chief” of SunStar Cebu examined the Puaben information that fueled the de la Serna assault on media. The title read: “De la Serna contributed to fiasco by buying his p.r. man’s tale.” “Oh my God,” a line said after tracing the source of Puaben’s tale, “That means, the governor bought a story that was a double or triple hearsay.”
The following day, October 8, 1992, a second “from the editor-in-chief” piece -- this time located above the Page 1 banner headline -- said in its title, “Media need solid proof on ‘conspiracy’ to cleanse their ranks of corruption.”
Columnist Leonardo V. Chiu wrote on November 23, 1992 that Cebuanos “deserve an apology” from the governor and the congressman over the attack on media. In another column, reproduced by CJJ in this section “Media Issue Plus,” Chiu wrote that “media people know who corrupts whom” and that corruptors of media mostly come from the ranks of politicians. Chiu, who passed away August 14, 2015, wrote how it was in Cebu on the issue of corruption.