(CMFR/IFEX) – A correspondent for the Philippines’ most widely circulated newspaper has received death threats after submitting a news story about Augusto Sanchez, the chief of staff for Pampanga province Vice-Governor Miguel Arroyo. Arroyo is President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s son. “Philippine Daily Inquirer” Central Luzon correspondent Tonette Orejas is under police protection. On 15 March 2003, […]
(CMFR/IFEX) – A correspondent for the Philippines’ most widely circulated newspaper has received death threats after submitting a news story about Augusto Sanchez, the chief of staff for Pampanga province Vice-Governor Miguel Arroyo. Arroyo is President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s son.
“Philippine Daily Inquirer” Central Luzon correspondent Tonette Orejas is under police protection. On 15 March 2003, she began receiving death threats by telephone and SMS (short message service) messages.
Orejas claims the death threats started after she submitted a 13 March story about the filing of sexual abuse charges against Sanchez. According to Orejas, Sanchez’s wife filed the case against her husband on 7 March at a Pampanga trial court after his step-daughter claimed she had been sexually abused by Sanchez.
In a 16 March e-mail, Orejas said she did not name Sanchez, his alleged victim or the victim’s mother in the article. She added that the story has not yet appeared in print.
The “Inquirer” correspondent also claims that she gave legal referrals to Sanchez’s wife when she was asked for help and referred the alleged victim to a counselor.
Upon receiving information that Sanchez was leaving the country for an unknown destination, Orejas said she called a contact who confirmed that a “man with the same name as the suspect appeared in the passenger manifest of a plane bound for Hong Kong” on 14 March.
Orejas tried to contact Sanchez by telephone and SMS messages, but got no reply. According to Orejas, Sanchez had twice sent messages in which he “expressed feelings of remorse and asked for forgiveness from us, his friends.”
On 15 March, Orejas received a phone call from a person who identified himself as Don Aviado and warned her not to write about the case. She received subsequent calls from Aviado, which she did not answer, and numerous SMS messages from an unidentified individual, threatening her for writing the story and offering her bribes if she would withdraw it.
Orejas said she was puzzled by Aviado’s knowledge that she was “working on the story that has yet to see print.” She asked, “Who could have ordered him to threaten me?”
In her most recent SMS messages to CMFR, Orejas said she suspects that the caller is just using Aviado’s name. The correspondent explained that the caller sounds like a 40-year-old man, and her research indicates that Aviado is 60 years old. “By his voice,” she said, “I can tell he’s not the man.”
According to Orejas, Sanchez, “who writes all of [Miguel Arroyo’s] correspondence,” used to work with Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo when the latter was vice-president. On 18 March, Miguel Arroyo said “he knew that Sanchez had left the country, [but] gave no details.” At present, Orejas stated, “there is no official word on where he’s gone, but he did not appear at a 20 March preliminary investigation hearing” on the case filed against him.
Orejas stated that while it is investigating the case, the Pampanga Press Club (PPC), “the nearest press organization I could rely on, has not taken any concrete actions to protect me and defend my rights as a journalist.”
PPC President Diosdado Pangilinan said that the club has not taken a position on the case because it is still trying to determine whether or not the threats are work-related.
Pangilinan said some club members view the problem as a personal matter. As far as the club knows, Pangilinan said, Orejas is a friend of the Sanchez family. Orejas’ having helped Sanchez’s wife in filing a case against the government official signifies that the threats were not incurred “directly in the line of her duty.”
A further complication is that “[Orejas] has not come up yet with a story on the incident,” added Pangilinan. If a story by her on the case had been published, the PPC “would have a basis for issuing a resolution denouncing the threats.”
Pangilinan also asked whom should the club address should it issue a statement denouncing the threats. “We have to be careful, because we don’t want to step on everybody’s toes,” he said.
In a 19 March e-mail interview, Orejas said she had asked her bureau chief “to pull the story from the desk.” “I would not dare stake my life on a story that, at this point, does not involve national interest,” she explained.
CMFR will continue to investigate this case.
