Sotto to amend law on mediamen if elected

MANILA, Philippines - Because the old one only covers print media practitioners, Nationalist People’s Coalition senatorial candidate Vicente Sotto III is planning to amend the law which protects newsmen from revealing their sources.

He said RA 53 which was authored in 1946 by his grandfather, then senator Vicente Yap Sotto, only protects mediamen from newspapers and magazines. “My grandfather authored the law to protect the print media. After more than five decades it needs to be amended to include all other forms of media used in the present time,” Sotto III said yesterday.

“The amendment should also cover and protect all local publications and networks (print, broadcast and online) not necessarily by of nationwide circulation or reach,” he said.

RA 53, otherwise known as the “Sotto Law” is an act to exempt the publisher, editor or reporter of any publication from revealing the source of published news or information obtained in confidence.

“The publisher, editor or duly accredited reporter of any newspaper, magazine or periodical of general circulation cannot be compelled to reveal the source of any news report or information appearing in said publication which is related in confidence to such publisher, editor or reporter, unless the court or a House or Committee of Congress finds that such revelation is demanded in the interest of the State,” Section 1 of the law declares.

Sotto III, who is doing well in the surveys among senatorial candidates of the May 2010 national polls, said it would be an honor that he can amend the law authored by his own grandfather.

“This is history in the making in the entire legislative records in the Philippines,” he noted, adding that RA 53 was the first law authored by his grandfather who was a former journalist in Cebu. Sotto founded the newspaper dubbed “Ang Suga,” the first newspaper in the Cebuano vernacular with the first issue printed on June 16, 1901.