ANGELES CITY – The National Union of Journalists of the Philippines- Pampanga (NUJP-Pampanga) denounced yesterday the harassment and abduction of a local journalist by agents of theNational Bureau of Investigation (NBI) while he was covering a raid of a nightclub along Fields Avenue here.
“Unless we act on such cases, we perpetrate the culture of impunity that led to the Maguindanao massacre that also killed many journalists. We want the NBI agents named and charged,” said NUJP-Pampanga chairman Ashley Manabat.
NBI regional director Ric Diaz confirmed to Punto the incident, but said he thought that his apology to victim Bernard Galang, correspondent of the People’s Tonight, was enough.
He said, however, that he was prepared to file appropriate charges against five of his agents allegedly involved in the abduction and harassment of Galang, after he was told this was the demand of the NUJP-Pampanga.
Galang related in an interview that at about 7 p.m. last Friday, he went to Fields Avenue to cover the NBI raid of Stampede Bar.
“The raid was over and four females were being led by NBI agents into an old van when I decided to take pictures using my small digital camera,” Galang said.
One bespectacled agent, who was wearing a jacket marked NBI emerged from the van and asked for Galang’s identity. “I informed him my ID card was in my shoulder bag and as I was rummaging for my press ID in my bag, the agent ordered one of his men to grab my camera,” Galang recalled.
Galang said the NBI agent whose name he did not get, also ordered his armed men to arrest him. “Two of the agents held my arm and led me into a parked Hilux van. I could not even protest because they had what seemed to be Uzi rifles,” he said.
Galang said that in the van, he was made to sit between two agents, while two more were seated at the back.
As the driver sped off towards the north, one of the agents erased all contents of his camera.
Galang also said that about a kilometer away from the raid site, one of the agents got a call from his cellphone instructing I could be set free. “That was when they returned my camera and I was dropped off their vehicle in the area of Villa del Sol subdivision. I took a jeepney and had the incident blottered at police station 4,” he recalled.
Diaz said that publishing of the faces of suspected law violators was against the law, but admitted that the case of Galang was different as he was merely taking pictures.
He said that he was not present during the raid which, he noted, was led by his agent he identified as Renato Mandawe.
Diaz also said that the arrest was based on the complaint of a group called Kamalayan which claimed that minors were employed by Stampede Bar along Fields Avenue, a major tourist district in this city.
He said, however, that those initially believed to be minors seemed to be of age based on dental examinations showing they already had “erupted molars”.
Such molars, which normally grow only in adulthood, is used by lawmen as yardstick in determining the probable age of women working in local bars, as minors are noted to fake their age when seeking employment in such establishments.
Ironically, however, photos of the women taken inside the NBI office was published on the front page of the local newspaper Central Luzon Daily.
