Piercing Pens

Antonio Zumel Center for Press Freedom

Press Statement
18 April 2007

The Antonio Zumel Center for Press Freedom (AZCPF) strongly condemns the recent attacks on media people and journalists. The assassins want to prevent the media from bringing to the public the true state of the nation and the criminal activities being committed by those in power. (more…)

National Union of Journalists of the Philippines

This week marks another dark period for press freedom in the Philippines, with the murder of a colleague, the attempted murder of another and a libel case filed by a governor against yet another.

Carmelo Palacios, 41, field reporter of the government-run Radyo ng Bayan, was found dead in Sta. Rosa town, Nueva Ecija, Wednesday morning, his body battered and shot in the chin. He was the 51st journalist to be killed under the Arroyo administration’s increasingly blood-drenched watch, and the third this year. (more…)

From Prof. Danilo Arao of the UP College of Mass Communication via Bryanton Post:

This press statement released on March 20 (Tuesday) was signed by 18 faculty members of the University of the Philippines College of Mass Communication (UP CMC) led by Dean
Elena Pernia. For verification, please call the UP CMC Department of Journalism at 920-6852.

The undersigned faculty members of the University of the Philippines College of Mass Communication (UP CMC) condemn in the strongest possible terms the filing of multiple murder charges against Bayan Muna Rep. Satur Ocampo which resulted in his arrest and detention last March 16.

That the charges were filed during the election season is already questionable, especially since
Ocampo’s Bayan Muna Partylist group is running for representation in the House of Representatives and has been repeatedly accused by the powers-that-be as a communist front. The situation is preposterous as the crimes he allegedly committed happened more than
two decades ago while he was in detention. (more…)

A group of sexy starlets stripped in a pictorial held in front of a Catholic Church in Manila. This attracted the attention of an excited crowd. The police arrived to arrest them. The city council later declared them “persona non grata.” Reports say charges of grave scandal were filed in court against them.

The controversial shampoo beauties–Ivory Ibanez, Jeanette Joaquin, Kat de Santos, Kuhdet Honasan, Mikaela Monteverde, Palmolive Palma, Pantene Palomino, Rejoice Rivera–are now invoking freedom of expression. (more…)

Here are some scenes, as shown in television reports yesterday, inside Queen Gloria’s “Strong Republic”:

Policemen arrested supporters of Fernando Poe, Jr. in Payatas who were distributing anti-administration flyers. They were later freed because the cops did not know what charges could be filed against them.

In Mendiola, a pro-FPJ protesters’ rally was violently dispersed by the police even if the organizers secured a permit. The road to the Palace was also blocked barbed wires.

Are our rights to freedom of expression and assembly already obsolete in Gloria’s version of Bagong Pilipinas?