TWO leading newspapers assailed today the decision of a Makati court junking the P10 million class action suit filed by journalists arrested while covering the Nov. 29 standoff at the Peninsula Manila Hotel.
The Philippine Daily Inquirer in an editorial described the decision of Judge Reynaldo Laigo as “a terrible mistake.”
“It misreads the context of the journalists’ detention, it rewards the police for unbecoming conduct. Not least, it adds to the erosion that has steadily undermined press freedom in the Age of Gloria,” the Inquirer said.
Also in an editorial, BusinessWorld said Laigo’s ruling “sends the biggest chill yet across the media profession, because it kills a journalist’s last chance at keeping his freedom — freedom that he exercises not for himself, by the way, but, as constitutional watchdog on the powers that be, for all of society.”
Read the full text of the editorials: