Malaya chief of reporters and columnist Ellen Tordesillas blogged her remarks before the Senate committees that tackled yesterday the media arrests at the Peninsula Makati.

Here’s a patikim:

I deplore the fascistic treatment by the police of members of media who stayed on to cover the unfolding crisis at the Manila Peninsula up to the end.

We had no choice but to go with the police to Camp Bagong Diwa for “processing.” The police instructed all members of media to move to the right side of the stairs. We did as told. It made me remember movie scenes of Nazi concentration camps.

The policemen then took out plastic handcuffs from a plastic bag and started tying us. We protested, saying that only criminals and suspects are handcuffed and we had not committed a crime. We told them we have rights. The police answered they were just doing their job.

I asked if martial law had been declared during the standoff, and wondered aloud why our basic rights seemed to have been suspended. I did not get an answer.

Under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), to which the Philippines is a party, basic freedoms cannot be denied citizens, including their right to be recognized under law, even during national emergencies. These rights are enshrined in our Constitution, under Article III on the Bill of Rights. There was no declaration of a
national emergency.

On the bus, I saw some journalists with their hands tied. When they put their handcuffed hands out of the window, the police tried to hit them with rattan truncheons.

That was deplorable. There is no justification for what the police did to us that night. Even in armed conflicts, under the Geneva Conventions, journalists enjoy the status of “protected persons” in recognition of the role they play in society.

No democratic country can properly function without a truly free press. Journalists serve the public’s right to know in matters that concern them because an enlightened citizenry is what democracy is all about.

Also posted on Ma’am Ellen’s blog are the remarks by NHK reporter Charmaine Deogracias and ABS-CBN news and current affairs chief Maria Ressa.