If there is any doubt that journalists are an endangered species, look at the Trillanes Episode.

Better still are the criminals: they are arrested with warrants of arrest issued by the Courts before detention. In America, the Court ordered a suspect released because the cops chained him to his bed while they visited the judge to prepare the Warrant of Arrest.

Better still are the criminals: only the hardened ones dying to escape or capable of violence, are handcuffed on the way to jail. Better still are the criminals: they are read the Miranda Doctrine: the right to make one phone call (probably to a lawyer) before one can be arrested.

Better still are the criminals because they are just bodily lodged to jail - his tools of the trade, his business, his factory - are all left intact.

We all saw how Government treated media after the Manila Peninsula incident last Thursday. Why was that so?

Perhaps it was the Government's way of suggesting to media people that they are in the wrong industry? Perhaps it was Government's way of intimidating media that it (Government) can do its fancy best and media just have to grin and bear it?

As part of media, the CHRONICLE condemns in the strongest terms possible the harassment and violation of human rights of media men after the Trillanes Episode.

The journalists were dumped like handcuffed pigs in the bus for the slaughter or "processing" inside the military camp - not seeing the warrants for their arrests and the cause of their detention, not allowed to do the Miranda Drill and some of their broadcast equipment and documents confiscated.

The fact that the media men were later released does not obliterate the reality of the illegality and inhumanity of their earlier detention. The "processing" could have been done at the Manila Pen itself after the incident. The ineptitude of the authorities to arrest the elusive Houdini by the name of Captain Faeldon of the Hundred Disguises is not media's fault.

Before GMA left for Europe, she had cautioned her men not to "unnecessarily rile media. Be circumspect. We are not at war with them."

It is one of the president's sobering moments of realization - that media was out there just to do its job. As Maria Ressa of ABS-CBN said: "We merely covered a news event to show to the world what happened." Ces Drilon TV Reporter said: "A press conference was called, we had to attend."

The fact that media had some half-baked information about the Trillanes Plan (earlier) is nothing but a sign of a failure of intelligence of the Military. Even the fact that some media men reserved rooms at the Manila Peninsula does not make them accomplices of Trillanes' alleged crime. That a TV network was able to set up its TV monitors in quick tempo is not a manifestation of support of the mutiny but a die-hard commitment to score a scoop as good journalists would always want.

As an aside, TV anchors Pinky Webb was not fully "made up" as she is wont to do and Ces Drilon wore a three and a half inch clog footwear to cover the event. Are these not circumstances that instead suggest that they knew nothing about the details of the Trillanes Plan?

In conflict situations, like war-torn Iraq, for example, the danger posed to the lives of both soldiers and media men is the same. Scores of media men, in fact, died chronicling the atrocities in the Vietnam War.

Media men offer their lives in conflict situations to portray the truth - yet when they die they are just considered collateral damage, a tragic statistic in the war and are never given medals by Government for heroism. That only proves that Government recognizes they are just doing their jobs so they need no adulation.

That being so, why were they then arrested? If indeed they were "obstructing justice" why were they released from the military camp after the "processing". Why is the contemplated charge of "obstructing justice" now a favorite government afterthought?

But if Government thinks it can intimidate media by using Marcosian tactics, it can try its luck further.

Threats and harm's way are part of the media man's territory. Those media men who are afraid to die with their pens in their hand can stay home and play the game of chess. It is a harmless game but thought-provoking, at least.

The National Press Club (NPC) had already filed charges against the DILG and the PNP before the Commission on Human Rights (CHR). And rightly so - before the temporary handcuffs turn into days of incarceration or years in the bartolina for media men - without media even knowing what the charges are.

Impatient with media's attack on Bush's war involvement in Iraq, pointed questions have been asked of media "Are you an American first or are you a journalist?" Or as Bush would categorize the world (and media) into black and white by saying "You are either with us or you are with terrorists."

Journalism - whether here or in America - should never yield to that kind of patriotism. It is a crude kind of patriotism that abandons moral responsibility. That kind of patriotism leads people to support brutal policies and to hide the truth from public view.

Therefore the Fourth Estate - for it to be truly useful to society - must be left alone to do its mandate to the public good.

It is only when media seeks the truth, finds the truth and tell it as it is will it become patriotic. Not anything less than that - even though it may "appear" patriotic. They are mere appearances.

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For Comments: email to bingo_dejaresco@boholchronicle.com Or editor@boholchronicle.com