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BY PRINCE GOLEZ
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Thursday, May 4, 2017
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MANILA – As she urged journalists to remain steadfast in upholding the truth, detained senator Leila de Lima also criticized President Rodrigo Duterte for allegedly leading the attack on press freedom in the Philippines.
“In this increasingly globalized world, press freedom is an integral part of nation-building,” de Lima said in a statement issued on World Press Freedom Day on Wednesday. “Silencing the press is killing our right to speak freely and voice out our concerns.”
De Lima asked local and foreign press to “fight the lies” and “advance a just, humane and peaceful community of nations.”
Now detained at the Philippine National Police Custodial Center on drug trafficking charges, the Duterte critic also expressed concern on the threat to freedom of speech under the present administration.
Fake news and “alternative historic conceptions” are an attack on press freedom, she said. “It is thus very troubling to see that, in the Philippines, no less than the President himself leads the attack on the media.”
Duterte “blatantly threatened” both local and foreign press and “cursed them numerous times for every criticism he receives,” de Lima said.
“Recently, he (Duterte) even dangled the possibility of rejecting a network’s license to operate,” she said. “At the same time, he threatened to go after a major shareholder of a newspaper giant after reading negative stories about the way he is running the government.”
Duterte’s verbal assault on two influential media outfits is a disregard of the “constitutional principles of press freedom and democratic governance,” said de Lima./PN
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