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The
rebellious Marine captain-turned senator, Antonio
Trillanes IV, was quoted the other day as thankfully
saying the presence of the media at the plush hotel
where he and his cohorts had chosen to hole up for their
“gig” on that fateful November (29) day prevented a
bloodbath.
But, of course; the 30 or so members of
media who were with him, wittingly or unwittingly,
nicely served as the rebel group’s human shield.
Everybody else is relieved and thankful,
not only Trillanes, that a massacre had been averted.
All’s well that ends well, as the saying goes.
But I don’t think commendations are in
order for the print, broadcast and television
journalists who nearly got caught in the crossfire of
what could have been a bloody confrontation. If I were a
responsible owner of a network, radio station or
newspaper, I’d have the front office confidentially call
in the “survivors” of that police siege and express my
relief they emerged unscathed. But I’d also give them a
bit of ass-chewing for recklessly placing themselves in
a no-win situation in the name of “the people’s right to
know.”
For what they did was not just
foolhardy; it was downright stupid.
What praiseworthy journalistic feat
could have possibly been achieved by covering the event
at such dangerously close range? The media unwittingly
assumed the role of participant, inhaling the same
tear-gas fumes and, in a worst-case scenario, taking a
hail of bullets and shrapnel along with those who were
obviously publicly defying duly constituted authority.
What’s worse is that some of them have
even given the impression they were secret sympathizers
of the putschists. If their credibility is now in doubt,
they only have themselves to blame.
Did those media people really believe
that no meaningful or adequate coverage of that event
would have been possible from a safer distance? This is
precisely why it is standard police procedure all over
the world to delineate critical areas with police lines
(usually with an imaginary perimeter represented by a
yellow ribbon). The idea is to keep out of harm’s way
spectators and everybody else not involved in the police
operation. The government usually does this in the
course of upholding the law. And upholding the law is a
government task that has the tacit consent of the
governed.
In the Peninsula Manila case, the media
members fell under the category of “spectators,” the
only difference being that unlike ordinary civilians,
they were there in a professional capacity to report on
what they saw and heard or were able to capture on tape.
As such, it was their duty to respect the police lines.
Being members of the so-called fourth estate did not
clothe them with any special privilege. Nor did it make
them invulnerable to the firepower of the two contending
forces in what could have been a violent confrontation.
Thus, those who invoked the “people’s
right to know” to justify their decision to remain in
the hotel with Trillanes either did not grasp the full
meaning of that term or were just hopelessly out of
touch with how the so-called free press should behave in
special situations.
The police authorities would have been
totally blameless had they decided to do their duty (to
uphold the law) on the dot or right after the 3 p.m.
deadline had elapsed. They had given ample warning of
their intention—which they would attack if the rebels
refused to give up peacefully. The media people,
especially the ABS-CBN news crew, couldn’t have missed
the warnings and importunings for them to leave the
premises before the 3 p.m. deadline. They had all the
electronic devices needed to monitor all police
movements and pronouncements.
Since there were 30 of them holed up
with Trillanes, the ground commanders hesitated. The
media had placed them in an unfamiliar situation not
covered by any police rule book. They were pissed off.
It took them almost two hours to reassess the situation
and finally decided to storm the building.
The fact that the media members had
unwittingly made themselves a human shield delayed the
siege by at least two hours. Technically, the police now
considered them “obstructions” to the enforcement of a
lawful arrest order (and that, dear readers, was why
they were all cuffed and taken to Camp Crame for
“processing,” if only to show how irritated they were by
the media’s meddling).
The media people involved in that case
should thank their lucky stars that Trillanes and his
men finally gave up without a fight. Had a firefight
erupted, it’s anybody’s guess how many media members we
would be mourning today. But would anyone of them be
hailed as a hero for their “intrepid” journalism? I
don’t think so. Stupidity can never be acclaimed or
rewarded.
Or, in a plausible scenario where a news
photographer or reporter manages to come out of it with
a nonfatal injury, he or she could probably come out
with a first-person account that would say, “I was there
when the bullets went whizzing by just two feet away.”
But I don’t think that journalist would be remembered
for long or would get any special honors or plaudits for
surviving a mess of his own making. News is a perishable
commodity. It will always be perishable even if it’s
about journalists who needlessly offered their stupid
carcasses to obtain it.
If I were the newspaper or network
owner, I would not only give those media people a mild
rebuke, I’d also go a step further. I would ask the
editor in chief or news director to come up with a set
of guidelines on how news should be gathered in the
future, based on the Manila Pen experience.
Members of the police and the military
have their own rules for each member to follow. These
are the “rules of engagement” that spell out specific
situations where any member may lawfully fire his gun or
disable, in any way, a perceived lawbreaker.
I don’t think it’s a bad idea for media
to adopt a set of “news coverage do’s and don’ts” to
govern their own conduct in the future.
The media’s presence was, in fact, the
very reason the police authorities couldn’t move in on
the defiant group at 3 p.m. as they had publicly and
repeatedly announced. The newsmen, who included the
entire news crew of ABS-CBN, were given ample time to
move out of the hotel. They couldn’t have possibly
missed the
3 p.m. ultimatum given the Trillanes group to peacefully submit to
the arrest warrant issued against them for walking out
in the midst of court- martial proceedings in connection
with the Oakwood Hotel mutiny.
Butch del Castillo is a former president
of the National Press Club.
Omerta_bdc@yahoo.com |
