By CARMELA FONBUENA
abs-cbnNEWS.com/Newsbreak
He has been granted a parole. He has posted bail. But freedom remains elusvie to jailed Davao city broadcaster Alexander Adonis. Now, press freedom advocates are asking the Supreme Court (SC) for help.
Manila-based media groups National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP) and the Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility (CMFR) joined Adonis as petitioners in a writ of habeas corpus filed Friday at the high court.
The writ is a legal remedy available for those who seek relief from unlawful detention. “He is being detained without legal basis,” said lawyer Harry Roque in a phone interview after they filed the petition. He said they are hoping the SC will include the case in their agenda of their en banc meeting on Tuesday.
A writ of habeas corpus is considered a high priority case. It has been successful in several cases of disappearances of activists.
Adonis of dxMF Bombo Radyo was sentenced in January 2007 to four and a half years in prison for slandering House Speaker Prospero Nograles, but he was granted a parole in December that year. The case was filed by the Speaker in protest of Adonis’s report that he was seen fleeing naked from a hotel after being caught by his alleged paramour’s husband.
The parole order reached the local prison last February, but Adonis could not be released immediately then because of a separate libel case filed by the woman in the same report. Adonis’s colleagues posted on May 26 a P5,000-bail for him in this second case. But inspite of a release order issued by Davao regional court Judge George Omelio, local prison chief Benjo Tesoro refused to release him without consent from higher correctional authorities.
The case has become high-profile. Even international media organizations--Reporters Without Borders, Southeast Asian Press Alliance, and the International Federation of Journalists--have issued statements protesting Adonis's continued incarceration.
Fight is not only for Adonis
Roque said that the petition is not only for the release of Adonis. It will benefit journalists nationwide because this case provides opportunity to revive calls to decriminalize libel in the Philippines , he said.
The Philippines is one of a few countries that still considers libel as a crime. It was decriminalized in the US as far back as the 1940s. Bills on it are pending in Congress, including one filed by Nograles himself.
In January, the SC issued Administrative Circular No. 8 telling judges to opt for fines instead of imprisonment in punishing those found guilty of libel. The SC got flak for this circular for allegedly amending the law. But the high court maintained that it was only advisory in nature.
“We want to know if the circular is retroactive,” Roque said. The cases against Adonis were filed before the SC circular. Several other journalists remain in jail because of libel convictions.
Roque is also lawyering for media groups and individual journalists in cases involving alleged violations of press freedom. Among them are the media class suit against First Gentleman Jose Miguel Arroyo and the case filed by “arrested” reporters in the November 2007 Manila Peninsula caper. NUJP and CMFR are also co-petitioners in these cases. They are the more active groups supporting journalists nationwide.