Pamintuan, son and namesake of the city mayor and League of Cities of the Philippines president Edgardo Pamintuan, “cautioned the media against publishing press releases from [Councilor Carmelo] Lazatin Jr’s camp” in a press release last week.
Pamintuan said: “They can write all the press releases they want but I am requesting our media friends to be discernful. Filing a questionable measure is one thing and getting it published in newspapers is another. Pero huwag naman yung nagmumukha tayong katawa- tawa at walang alam sa batas at mga pambansang regulasyon. Sabi nga doon sa spot. ph site, ‘there are laws that have us cheering on the lawmaker who fi led it and there are laws that make us laugh out loud or cringe in shame.’”
Pamintuan and Lazatin, namesake and son of former city mayor and 1st District Rep. Carmelo Lazatin, have been engaged for sometime in arguments that have gone beyond the session hall of the city council.
“The friction between Councilors Lazatin and Pamintuan is theirs. If we cover and report on it, we in the PPC care to center on public interests. Journalists are not politicians or politicians’ allies,” said Tonette Orejas, PPC vice president for broadcast.
“While media have no right to meddle in the aff airs of the City Council and its members, it has, however, a duty to report to the public on developments at the august body and other offi ces, especially those in government,” said the PPC statement titled “Media here to report, not to judge.”
PPC president Diosdado Pangilinan said: “Media do not and will never act as a judge or even discern who or what party is right or wrong, especially in reporting facts from news sources in straight news articles.”
Clarifying that: “Ano man po ang usapan o maging away ng mga konsehal sa bawat isa, wala po kaming pakialam sa mga iyon. Ang aming layunin at misyon ay ang mailathala ang mga pangyayari sa konseho.”
“The role to execute judgment and form interpretation and opinion rests on the general public,” Pangilinan stressed.
The PPC reminded Pamintuan the incumbency upon media “to accommodate press releases whether from the majority, minority and even independent councilors” as these are of public interests.
“Cautioning the media against publishing any is deemed as overstepping the bounds of the role of a councilor and thus is tantamount to curtailment of freedom of the press,” the PPC told Pamintuan.
To Orejas, Pamintuan’s cautionary statement “boils down to responsible journalism which many in the PPC practice.”
“It was a misplaced reminder to media, like telling saints to be kind,” Orejas said.
NUJP-Pampanga
Earlier, the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines-Pampanga Chapter issued a statement signed by its chair, Ashley Manabat, raising the issue of press freedom impacting on Pamintuan’s statement. (See editorial).
“Will this mean that if the media will continue to publish what they perceive is newsworthy from the camp of Councilor Lazatin Jr., the camp of the mayor who is now the national president of the League of Cities in the Philippines and least of all Councilor Edu, will come down hard on the media with every form of adversity?” NUJP-Pampanga asked.
This, even as the media group said Pamintuan “is ignorant of the law.”
“Telling the media what to do is plain censorship that curtails press freedom which was the habit of dictators long banished by the people and swept in the dustbin of history,” NUJP-Pampanga concluded.
