STAR reporter probed on Mancao pic

MANILA, Philippines - A fuming Justice Secretary Leila de Lima ordered an investigation yesterday of a STAR reporter for the publication of a photo showing fugitive former police superintendent Cezar Mancao II in a fastfood outlet.

De Lima said the photo, which showed Mancao holding Thursday’s issue of The Philippine STAR, had been altered.

She said this was the conclusion of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) after examining the photo, now circulating on the Internet, which Mancao had emailed to STAR reporter Rey Galupo in the course of a phone interview.

“This is very insulting to us because it makes us inutile in our efforts to find him… I was really shocked… this makes me mad,”  De Lima told a press conference at the NBI headquarters in Manila, from where Mancao had walked out of his detention cell last May 2.

She said she ordered an investigation after being told by the NBI that the photo was a fake, with the image of Mancao holding the paper real “but the background was not the real background.”

“Whose ploy is that? Is it Mancao’s or is it the reporter’s?” De Lima asked.

In the same press briefing, she told Galupo to “just face the investigators so you can be absolved.”

Galupo said he merely received the photo from Mancao by email in the course of a phone interview last Thursday morning.

The STAR does not know where the photo was taken and did not alter the photo sent by Galupo in any way.

De Lima said she believed Mancao was using the media for publicity in his bid to win a board seat in Compostela Valley.

“We would like to take this opportunity now for the media to perhaps be careful because Mancao may be using you so he can become more popular,” she said.

She did not say what charges Galupo might face.

De Lima earlier admitted that Mancao’s escape had been a major embarrassment to both the NBI and the Department of Justice (DOJ). She said the continued failure of the NBI to find Mancao was even more humiliating.

Reporters of both ABS-CBN and GMA 7 had earlier interviewed Mancao on camera following his escape, but De Lima did not openly fulminate against the two major networks.

Galupo said he was ready to face NBI probers. He said Mancao used a different phone number in all their interviews, which the fugitive initiated through text messages.