5 senators oppose bid to control media interviews

MANILA, Philippines - Five senators supported yesterday the call to stop efforts to control media coverage of the Senate after strict guidelines were issued to prevent journalists from conducting interviews inside the Senate session hall.

During plenary session, deputy minority leader Vicente Sotto III reiterated the need to dialogue with the members of media before any strict rules are implemented at the Senate. 

Senators Grace Poe, Francis Escudero, Alan Cayetano, and Loren Legarda shared the same sentiment.

Sotto had raised the issue on why members of the Senate media are being restricted from conducting interviews inside the session hall.

Sotto cited the media advisory issued by the Public Relations Information Bureau (PRIB) signed by Raymund Corro who reiterated the ban on interviews inside the session hall, especially when session is ongoing.

“As a rule, absolute silence in the plenary hall must be observed during sessions so as not to distract the proceedings,” he said.

The PRIB issued the advisory after the Department of Justice filed plunder charges against Senate Minority Leader Juan Ponce Enrile, Senators Jinggoy Estrada and Ramon Revilla Jr.

The PRIB also reminded the media not to conduct interviews at the session hall, and that such interviews should only be made at the Sumulong Room, which the Senate leadership has turned into a briefing room.

“It does not cultivate harmonious relationship with the media, the Senate press. So may we ask the Senate secretariat to look into this,” Sotto said during open session.

Poe said that the open system has been a practice since the Philippine Senate reopened in 1987, which is a “fitting homage to the basic liberties enshrined in the Constitution.”

“While proper decorum must be observed by the media, which this representation notes, (control) is somewhat arbitrary,” said the chair of the Senate committee on public information and mass media.

“The lapse of some media members on that particular situation when they interviewed a senator while the Senate is in session, to my mind, should not be used as a blanket authority to cause a chilling effect on the media,” Poe added.

Poe and Sotto said the media advisory sent by PRIB threatens to revoke the accreditation of reporters after they insisted on interviewing Revilla – while Senate was in session – regarding the filing of a plunder complaint before the ombudsman last Monday.

Meanwhile, the National Press Club (NPC) yesterday lauded the senators for opposing the apparent attempt by some officers of the PRIB identified with Senate President Franklin Drilon to put a stop to media interviews.

“The NPC takes comfort over the fact that rather than take refuge in secrecy due to the many controversies now hounding the Senate by restricting media interviews, there are enough of its members who continue to stand up for the unhampered exercise of the freedom of the press, especially within the confines of its walls,” said NPC president Benny Antiporda.

He said that since Drilon was elected Senate president last July, some officers of the PRIB already made it known that media interviews, especially at the plenary, would soon be a “thing of the past.”