Cebu media — and the rest of us, by extension — have been presented an opportunity to rethink and reorient how we handle police reports and the mug shots and similar photos that law enforcement often releases on its Viber groups and social media accounts.
According to Cebu City-based Sun.Star, broadcaster Arnold Bustamante was arrested last week on a libel complaint after he "allegedly bad-mouthed and defamed the business corporation by faulting their product as fake and harmful to the public on his radio program."
News outlets in Metro Manila like the Philippine Star, Manila Times and the Daily Tribune picked the story up and went with the police version of events, which is how most reports about arrests and police operations are done.
From state-run Philippine News Agency: Cebu City broadcaster nabbed for labeling product ‘fake, harmful’
Except, the Defense PNP Press Corps of Cebu City issued a September 27 statement calling out the police Anti-Cybercrime Group for "maliciously releasing mug shots and inaccurate press releases to the media involving the surrender" of Bustamante, whom they said surrendered when served the warrant for his arrest.
"DEPP is dismayed that the Anti Cyber-Crime Group issued a press release stating that it had to form an Oplan Tracker to arrest Bustamante," it also said, referring to "tracker teams" that are usually sent out to look for fugitives or for social media users who allegedly issue death threats against presidential candidates.
They said the ACG statement "likened Bustamante to an elusive hardened criminal".
These are, of course, valid concerns and having a member of the media booked for cyber libel is always worrisome.
But so should anyone else being treated or portrayed as "an elusive hardened criminal," which is often how suspects are presented to the public.
Officially, according to a 2007 memorandum, the Philippine National Police should not be presenting suspects to the media "in a 'firing squad' manner" because having suspect line up in front of cameras "subjects them to unwanted publicity that could besmirch their name and reputation, including that of their family."
They still do it, of course, although they sometimes allow suspects to wear ski masks to hide their features. Or they do it through documentation photos showing suspects beside the contraband allegedly confiscated from them that are later released to media. Or through mug shots and booking photos with features blurred out.
In any case, newsrooms regularly use these materials in the reports that we publish or air.
It's a practice that is unfair to the suspect and one that we really should have long ago abandoned, but mug shots are compelling and they get us engagement on social media, even if that engagement is often online hatred against the suspect who has yet to be charged in court, much less found guilty.
We also regularly use the police spot reports as if they were handed down to Moses himself, often without even speaking to or even seeing the suspect. Doing so is easier both logistically — there is often no money to go to individual police stations and communities to verify these "spot" and "sketchy" reports — and for maintaining good relations with police sources.
DEPP hints at that relationship in their statement: "With Bustamante as President, DEPP has been a good partner of the Police Regional Office-Central Visayas, including when General Doria was assigned to Cebu City."
I cannot comment on what a “good partner” to the police is but the press group reminds them that "police would cry for fairness from the media [and] we also hope that officials, such as General Doria, would offer the very same courtesy."
Lost in that debate, as a Cebu-based colleague points out: "They said pa na 'know the difference' (between surrender and arrest) eme eme when they could have just taken a stand against libel."
RELATED: Fresh cybercrime ruling highlights old problem of criminal libel
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Interesting take from CNN Philippines on the future of the ‘mosquito press’ that dared to publish critical stories during the Marcos dictatorship. It includes Commoner — they’re great and I love their work! — among the alternative media “— albeit not necessarily for the sole purpose of being opposition publications. Or at least not yet.”
They’re certainly alternative in that they are exploring new ways of presenting information, but possibly not in the sense of how “alternative press” is usually understood to mean. Still, given how We Forum and Mr and Ms went where the traditional press could not during the dictatorship, why not?We marked the 50th year since the dictator Marcos delcared Martial Law in 1972, a short ‘Anyare’ video looking into the legacy that left behind: TOP 5 MARTIAL LAW LEGACIES: Marcos era, balikan • ANYARE?
As rumors swirl that Press Secretary Trixie Cruz-Angeles is about to be replaced, a look at how her stint has been so far: Palace press office wanders into the world of propaganda
Finally, the continuing saga of red-tagger Lorraine Badoy-Partosa, who has accused all and sundry of being in league with communists, most recently a Manila judge who junked a government petition to declare the Communist Party of the Philippines and New People’s Army as terrorist groups.
In the same decision, Judge Marlo Magdoza-Malagar said that being an activist does not equate to being a rebel.“Members of [National Democratic Mass Organizations] espouse valid societal change, without necessarily giving through to ‘armed struggle’ or ‘violence’ aimed at overthrowing the government, as a means to achieve the same,” she said.
The judge didn’t say crimes attributed to the CPP-NPA were not crimes either, only that they did not qualify under the Human Security Act, which has been replaced by the Anti-Terrorism Act. The Department of Justice, which filed the petition, took the decision in stride, but Badoy-Partosa went the other way and into conspiracy-theorist galaxy brain territory in this still unfolding drama:
Ex-ELCAC spox Badoy threatens judge, then denies Facebook post
Integrated Bar, PJA: Don't tolerate personal attacks and threats vs judges
UP Visayas, Chevening alums push back vs ex-Palace official's red-tagging
SC acts on threats vs judge, warns of possible contempt sanctions