At least 40 TV and print journalists have backed the petition of Rappler before the Supreme Court assailing the constitutionality of Malacañang’s coverage ban on the online news website.
In a petition for intervention, the group led by prominent journalists Tina Monzon-Palma, Luis Teodoro, Marites Vitug and John Nery asked the Court to grant the relief sought by Rappler and order the Office of the President to allow the news outfit and its reporters to cover President Rodrigo Duterte’s public events.
The journalists sided with the argument of Rappler that the ban violates press freedom, free speech, due process and equal protection under the 1987 Constitution and also constitutes content-based prior restraint.
They said the ban that the President imposed on March 1, 2018 “extends not only to Rappler and to its reporters and staff but also to any journalist who would write or broadcast anything that the President deems to be ‘fake news.’”
The group said only four types of expression may be subject to prior restraint—pornography, false or misleading advertising, advocacy of imminent lawless action and danger to national security.
“That the ban is directed at content is clear and incapable of dispute…Absent the substantial government interest as well as the ‘clear and present danger,’ the ban constitutes impermissible content-based prior restraint of protected expression,” read the petition filed through former Court spokesman Theodore Te of the Free Legal Assistance Group.
Petitioners alleged that the ban stemmed only from “the President’s displeasure at Rappler’s and Ms. Pia Ranada’s reporting.”
“The clearest sign that the ban is arbitrary and based only on personal discomfort or displeasure is the account of Ms. Ranada, in the main case, that she had actually met with the President at a public function, asked the President to lift the ban, and was told by the President that the lifting of the ban would be contingent on her [Ms. Ranada] voting for one of the President’s preferred senatorial candidates,” they added.
Rappler and its reporters filed the petition with the Court on April 11.
They asked that their access to newsworthy events where the President or other officers of the executive branch would be present be restored. Also, for the respondents to “cease and desist from preventing petitioners Rappler and its affiliated journalists from covering, witnessing and/or attending newsworthy events held in places throughout the Philippines.”
Petitioners said the ban violates constitutional guarantees of press freedom, free speech, due process, and equal protection. The ban is also tantamount to prior restraint which is prohibited by the Constitution.
Since Feb. 20, 2018, Rappler said the Palace banned its reporters from covering the President and his political party Partido Demokratiko Pilipino-Lakas ng Bayan Party (PDP), including those held in public places.
Beginning that day, Rappler’s Malacañang reporter Ranada was not allowed to enter the New Executive Building where the press briefing of then-Presidential Spokesman Harry Roque was held. The press working area is also located in the building.
Duterte on March 1, 2018, issued an open-ended order banning Rappler: “You’re investigating us, fact-finding, well, sorry, do not f*** with me. That is my order. Do not talk to people who will produce lies out of your statements and who can twist it forever to the angle that they would like it to.”
Other correspondents and journalists of Rappler have also experienced being banned from attending and covering public events where Duterte would be present.
Named respondents in the case were the OP, Office of the Executive Secretary, Presidential Communications Operations Office, Media Accreditation Registration Office, and the Presidential Security Group.