Media groups in Zamboanga join calls to scrap Right of Reply Bill

ZAMBOANGA CITY , Philippines  – Different media groups in this province have joined calls to scrap Senate Bill 2150 or the Right of Reply (ROR) bill authored by Sen. Aquilino Pimentel Jr.

Atty. Vicente Solis, legal adviser of the Kapisanan ng Brodkaster ng Pilipinas (KBP), said the ROR will clearly violate the Constitution and vowed to fight it at the Supreme Court (SC) once passed by Congress.

Solis, a bar topnotcher and resident of this city, expressed apprehension that the ROR might be passed citing separate cases in the US, even if there is no ROR in the American charter.

Based on his findings on research he conducted in the US, the broadcast media will be more vulnerable than print media if such a bill were passed.

Sonny Fernandez, National Union of Journalists in the Philippines (NUJP) secretary-general, said the different media organizations remain against the ROR in any forms, reminding the bill’s proponents of existing laws and media ethics as avenue for those who might be aggrieved by any media representative.

In a forum sponsored by NUJP Zamboanga-Basilan-Sulu-Tawi-Tawi (ZamBaSulTa) chapter and Peace Advocate of Zamboanga (PAZ), members of the press said any form of ROR violates the Constitution.

“The approval of the ROR is an abominable attempt to muzzle press freedom and strangle the people’s right to untrammeled information as the foundation of a nation’s democracy,” NUJP said.

The local NUJP, in a manifesto signed by members and non-members, said it is shamed by the fact that Senator Pimentel, who established his reputation as a human and civil rights defender and advocate, is a son of Mindanao.

“Is it not enough that many Mindanao journalists have been killed and harassed and continue to fear for their lives in the course of faithfully discharging their sacred duty to the people so that the good Senator further terrorizes and penalizes us with the threat of statutory extreme prejudice?” the local media practitioners decried.

The group said it is ironic that the Senate, being the first and last bastion of the Philippines’ constitutional and democratic rights, “is the manufacturer of this crass, cruel and constitutionally-infirm stratagem.”