Handout photo/Manila Today
A Filipina journalist walked out of jail Friday after a judge threw out charges of illegal possession of firearms and explosives last month, following her December arrest that drew loud protests from Philippine human rights groups and free-press advocates.
Lady Ann Salem, who was released from the Mandaluyong jail in Metropolitan Manila, is editor-in-chief of the online news outfit Manila Today, which has criticized President Rodrigo Duterte’s policies including his administration’s brutal war on drugs.
“I have been in jail since Dec. 10, but other political prisoners have been in jail for years,” Salem, 36, told reporters as she emerged from the jail and walked toward an awaiting car. “That’s why we hope that others would also be released soon.”
Published March 4, 2021, 4:38 PM
Several lawyers said the verbal and physical attacks against many of them, particularly those who act as counsels in the petitions against the Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA), could be abated if the Supreme Court (SC) would stop the enforcement of the law.
(Photo courtesy of CEGP – Luzon)
They called on the SC as “the constitutionally-appointed guardian of civil liberties and protector of the legal profession to take immediate measures to stop these attacks.”
“The issuance of a TRO (temporary restraining order) on the enforcement of the ATA pending the final adjudication of the 37 petitions could help address the worsening situation,” they said.
(NUJP)
“The National Union of Journalists of the Philippines stands with our colleagues from the campus publications of the University of the Philippines and denounces the cowards who have threatened them with violence,” the journalists’ union said in a statement.
The Tinig ng Plaridel, the official student paper of the University of the Philippines (UP) College of Mass Communication, reported receiving a message Monday, March 1, containing “red-tagging and death threats from a suspected troll account.”
“The person behind the account sent pictures of campus publications’ logos and student journalists in UP, of which include the Editor-in-Chief of Tinig ng Plaridel, falsely branding them as ‘terrorists’ associated with certain rebel groups,” the student paper said in a Facebook post.
Photos by CARLO MANALANSAN
MANILA Thousands marched along EDSA to commemorate the 35th anniversary of people power uprising which toppled the Marcos dictatorship.
Protesters led by Bagong Alyansang Makabayan held a program in front of Camp Aguinaldo, headquarters of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, condemning what they called as Duterte’s tyranny.
In her speech, Anakbayan Spokesperson Jeann Miranda said that President Rodrigo Duterte has surpassed the record of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos when it comes to extrajudicial killings.
For human rights alliance Karapatan, remembering the legacy of the EDSA People Power uprising is “more urgent now with the Marcoses announcing their nefarious plans to further creep back to power and in the face of another murderous dictatorship under Duterte.”
Suspect in 2018 killing of Davao del Norte journo nabbed task force
Published February 24, 2021 10:37am
Updated February 24, 2021 10:42am One of the suspected gunmen in the 2018 killing of Davao del Norte journalist Dennis Denora has been arrested, the government task force on media security announced on Wednesday. In a statement, the Presidential Task Force on Media Security (PTFoMS) identified the suspect as Richard Posas Bolastig, a subject of a court-issued arrest warrant. Bolastig is currently detained at the Tagum City Jail awaiting trial, PTFoMS said. Denora, publisher of Trends and Times, a community paper based in Davao del Norte, was killed by two gunmen in an ambush in Panabo City on June 7, 2018.