MALACAñANG assured on Monday that “due consideration” would still be given to nine blacklisted Hong Kong journalists to cover the upcoming 2015 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) summit in Manila even after they heckled President Aquino at last year’s Apec forum in Bali, Indonesia.
Communications Secretary Herminio B. Coloma Jr. gave the assurance after Foreign Correspondents Association of the Philippines President Manuel Mogato protested the blacklisting of Hong Kong journalists as “public safety threat” by the National Intelligence Coordinating Agency (Nica) and the Bureau of Immigration (BI).
Mogato, in a news statement issued over the weekend, asked the two agencies to clarify their basis in declaring as threats to public safety the unidentified journalists who shouted questions at Mr. Aquino demanding updates on the 2010 case of hostaged Hong Kong tourists killed during a bungled police rescue at Rizal Park.
“We have asked the Bureau of Immigration to reassess [the Nica request to blacklist the Hong Kong journalists],” Coloma told the BusinessMirror when asked if the Palace had clarified with Nica that it is not inclined to blacklist journalists who heckled the President and will not bar them from covering Apec and other related events in the country.
Coloma, who heads the Presidential Communications Operations Office (PCOO) that is in charge of accrediting local and foreign journalists assigned to cover the Apec forum to be hosted by the Philippines, explained that they have not yet accredited the blacklisted Hong Kong journalists as “the accreditation process has not started.”
“We still need to establish guidelines,” the Palace official said, adding, “We will give due consideration to their professional credentials, if and when they decide to apply for accreditation.”
Asked if the PCOO, in granting the accreditation to the blacklisted Hong Kong journalists, will include conditions like not disrespecting the President, Coloma replied, “We have not yet drawn up the guidelines.”
Coloma added that his office is still “requesting inputs from various stakeholders, especially the media sector,” apparently to avoid a similar incident.
Foreign Secretary Albert F. del Rosario, meanwhile, said he will ask for the lifting of the ban on the Hong Kong journalists who were blacklisted from entering the Philippines after they reportedly heckled President Aquino during a meeting of the Apec last year in Bali, Indonesia.
“I only have one sentence and I think its decisive one: That issue will be revisited,” del Rosario said at the sidelines of the Management Association of the Philippines’s Man of the Year award ceremony, which the association conferred on him.
With Recto Mercene