An eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation between two powerful entities-media and two Sangguniang Panglungsud committees, resulted in the law-making body buckling to media pressure.
The two committees of the SP, in a sharp turnabout, caved in last week under the sheer weight of a media juggernaut. The bone of contention of the two warring groups was the investigation of the so-called Blue Card anomaly.
Looking like a throwback of the recent Senate investigation where a hearing was held behind closed doors, the two SP committees -public accountability and investigation and health and sanitation backtracked from their previous position not to allow media coverage of the proceedings.
When Kagawad Leonides Borja, chair of the committee on health and sanitation was asked to confirm if indeed there was a "gag order" for media not to cover the investigations, he said there was a previous agreement among committee members to hold the sessions behind closed doors.
Earlier, Kagawad Anne Mariquit Oppus, chair of the lead committee-public accountability and investigation, argued that the closed door proceedings were intended to protect witnesses from being exposed to the glare of publicity. The committee members agreed that if media were allowed to cover the proceedings, witnesses might clam up thereby preventing them from giving substantial information needed by the probe body.
At the first sign that the investigations would not be open to the public, radio programs of the city's two stations went to town to denounce the media discrimination.
--published by the Bohol Sunday PostLinkback:
https://tubagbohol.mikeligalig.com/index.php?topic=5854.0