PRINT and broadcast journalists who earlier
filed a P10-million class suit against police and military
officials sought yesterday an extension of the 72-hour temporary
restraining order (TRO) prohibiting the police and military from
arresting media practitioners covering incidents similar to the
Manila Peninsula Hotel standoff last November.
The journalists through lawyer Harry Roque
asked Judge Rey-naldo Laigo of the Makati regional trial court
to extend the TRO earlier issued by Makati executive Judge
Winlove Dumayas which expired last Thursday.
In asking for the issuance of a preliminary
prohibitory injunction against the respondents, the journalists
reiterated their argument that their arrest during the Manila
Pen standoff and the subsequent pronouncements by police,
military and justice officials constitute a "grave threat" to
press freedom in the country and the right of the public to
information. "The police treatment of the media in the wake of
the Manila Peninsula standoff was clearly meant to intimidate,
cow and muzzle the press. Official acts and pronouncements
before, during and after the standoff indicate an official
policy that violates the most sacred of rights of citizens in a
democratic society such as ours," the plaintiffs’ memorandum
said.
"Respondents are no ordinary men… they are
all the President’s men and together they brought the full
weight of the Chief Executive’s prosecutorial, police and
military power to bear on protected speech. They were men in
high places moving in a coordinated way, as if directed by one
master waving her baton in the clutches of the dark to
intimidate, harass, cow, browbeat and repress the press into
meek submission," the plaintiffs said.
"The point is precisely that journalists will
be glancing behind him or her or soft-pedaling and being much
more cautious than is warranted under a free society. That is
what the Sword of Damocles is all about, it hangs above the head
of the poor victim who does not know when it shall fall. As a
result, the poor victim is kept in a grip of fear or imminent
arrest and detention," the plaintiffs said.
The petitioners also asked the court to
strike down the advisory issued by Justice Secretary Raul
Gonzalez for "vagueness and over-breadth for the same reasons
that a law is struck down for vagueness and over-breadth. A law
is void on its face for vagueness if persons of common
intelligence must necessarily guess at its meaning and differ as
to its application," they said.
