Media monitoring to continue, says DoJ chief

http://news.inq7.net/breaking/index.php?index=1&story_id=68194

Media monitoring to continue, says DoJ chief
First posted 03:37pm (Mla time) Mar 03, 2006
By Tetch Torres
INQ7.net

(UPDATE) DESPITE the lifting of the state of national emergency, Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez said monitoring of the media would continue.

At a press conference Friday, Gonzalez said that the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) had forwarded to him video and audio copies of news programs from various television and radio for evaluation.

The NTC also provided 12 VCD copies of ABS-CBN and its news channel ANC's coverage of the Marine standoff last February 26, Gonzalez said.

Gonzalez referred to the incident last Sunday when Colonel Ariel Querubin, commander of the First Marine Brigade, led his men in protesting the sudden replacement of their commandant Major General Renato Miranda.

"I have here tapes and disks, which are being transcribed. I want to know what have been said actually," Gonzalez said, noting that the DoJ wanted to see if there was anything seditious in the commentaries or if the coverage favored the destabilizers.

Gonzalez added that one thing he learned from Proclamation 1017 was that even the "most rebellious media were intimidated by the proclamation and [as a result] had begun to reexamine their policies."

Commenting on Gonzalez's remarks, ABS-CBN said, "We will not be intimidated."

"The news is not propaganda. It is not something to be manipulated, distorted nor censored," ABS-CBN head for news and current affairs Maria Ressa said in a statement to INQ7.net.

She added that the network would "continue giving the public the truth in line with the strict guidelines of our Code of Ethics."