SEAPA condemns continued detention of Philippine broadcaster

Source: By SEAPA

BANGKOK, 29 May 2008: The Southeast Asian Press Alliance condemns
the continued detention of Philippine radio commentator Alex
Adonis, who has been in jail for libel since 2007, despite a court
order calling for his release on parole.

A coalition of free press advocacy groups from the Philippines,
Thailand, and Indonesia, SEAPA sees Adonis’ continued stay in
prison as an affront to, and indicative of, a flawed justice system
that too often leaves the rights of the Philippine press vulnerable
to powerful interests.

The Manila-based Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility, a
founding member of SEAPA, reported on 26 May 2008, that the warden
of the Davao Penal Colony has refused to follow an order by the
Department of Justice Board of Pardon and Paroles (DOJ-BPP) to
release the broadcaster. Adonis’ parole had been granted as early
as December 2007, and records show that the parole order was
received by the Davao jail warden in February 2008. CMFR adds that
the radio commentator also continues to be held despite his posting
of a bail bond for another libel case he is facing.

Adonis was sentenced on 26 January 2007 to a prison term ranging
from five months to four-and-a-half years, and a fine of P200,000
(approx. US$4,600) after a local court found that he had libeled a
congress representative, the current House Speaker, Prospero
Nograles. A local court said Adonis was guilty of “slandering”
Nograles, the speaker of the House of Representatives and a valued
ally of Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, in his
commentaries about the allegedly fleeing naked from a Manila hotel
after being caught by his reported paramour’s husband. Adonis was
supposed to be freed on bail last December but a new libel case –
this time filed by Nograles’ alleged mistress – further kept his
release on hold.

Beyond the court’s findings and decisions, SEAPA says Adonis’ case
is troubling for its demonstration of everything that is dangerous
with the Philippines’ criminal defamation law. As pointed out in a
complaint filed before the UN Human Rights Committee last April by
the CMFR, the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines, and
Adonis’ lawyer, Mr. Harry Roque, criminal defamation is excessive
in its prescribed prison penalties, and is quite inevitably used to
harass media practitioners and to have a chilling effect on the
press in general. No less a person than the Chief Justice of the
Philippines has urged Philippine judges to mitigate against this
problem with criminal defamation by imposing fines instead of
imprisonment in libel cases.

SEAPA thus joins the call on Philippine authorities to not only
effect the release of Adonis, but to also, once and for all,
decriminalize libel in the country. Criminal defamation has no
place in a genuine democracy, and is in fact a threat to its
principles and functioning.

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