The raid was provoked by a certain J.V. Villar, a reporter at ABS-CBN. The police blotter report states that Villar approached the District Police Intelligence Unit (DPIU) of the CPD and "reported" that "indecent acts" happen inside the theater. Villar, with fellow reporter Karen Padilla tagging along, then went with the police unit during the raid.
"The patrons and those who were arrested were forced to face the camera and media men allegedly forced to have some of the patrons interviewed. The report was shown in three ABS-CBN news programs: Magandang Umaga, Bayan, TV Patrol, and Headlines. In Magandang Umaga, Bayan, when one of the hosts raised an alarm over the blatant police harassment taking place, his colleague, Erwin Tulfo, allegedly remarked that ‘indecent’ gay men inside the theater deserved such treatment from the police and that they should concentrate instead on their work in beauty parlors than do these lewd acts. In the news reports, ABS-CBN didn’t hide the faces of the interviewees and the other movie goers."
Let me interject here that the obviously homophobic Tulfo – he with the erect bearing and the shrill, AM-radio band voice – is not aware that gay men also work outside beauty parlors. They were – and are – senators of the republic, congressmen, military men, members of the police, athletes, priests, teachers, and, yes, broadcast journalists, too.
The report of Lagablab zeroes in on the eyewitness account of Christian (not his real name), a 27-year-old engineering graduate from Quezon City. He gave statements to Lagablab on condition of anonymity, for fear that the police might get back at those who were caught during the raid. The report follows.
"At about 8:15 to 8:30 p.m., during the start of the last full show, the bell of the theater rang. It was followed by a stampede among the movie goers. Christian arrived at the theater around 7:15 p.m. and he was seated inside when the commotion happened. A group of around 20 plainclothesmen from Camp Karingal, composed of the police operatives and their assistants entered the theater. They shouted at people not to leave – and that they are conducting a raid.
"Christian tried to flee from the theater but as he was about to stand, a policeman forced him to stay seated. The policeman said that Christian is under arrest since he was ‘caught in the act of doing something (immoral) inside the theater.’ Christian noticed that the policemen were blatantly hitting the patrons with their hands or with sandals that were left behind by the fleeing moviegoers. He also noticed that a man was suddenly bleeding from a wound on his head after being hit by a gun by one of the operatives.
"They were told that they were being apprehended for ‘public scandal.’ Some of the movie goers complained that the policemen took money from their wallets and they were constantly being hit with hands or other hard objects. They were pushed outside the theater with force, such that their shirts were torn. Christian also saw policemen asking some of the patrons for money before being allowed to go home. He also said that the policemen kept cursing them...
"When they were being led outside the movie house, Christian saw that the reporters of Channel 2 tried to interview some of the movie goers. The confused and startled movie goers attempted to avoid the camera, but they were forced to expose their faces. Christian couldn’t tell if those who forced them to show their faces were policemen or people from Channel 2 themselves, since no one was in police uniform. When Christian saw the report the morning after, he was shocked and angered that Channel 2 didn‘t even bother to cover the faces of the movie goers. He also said that the report conspicuously did not include the extortion that took place inside the theater, as well as most of the physical harassment and violence. The man, who was wounded, according to Christian, later had an asthma attack. The police told him he would be brought to the hospital. When Christian heard this, he felt a chill through his body and started to fear for the man’s life... Lagablab learned later from a source inside the camp that the man was brought to Camp Karingal instead of being brought to the hospital. He was also told to go around the camp barefooted while being threatened not to talk to anyone about the incident.
"According to other witnesses, at around 10 p.m., five movie goers were pushed inside a rented jeepney. The cameraman followed the arrested patrons as they boarded the vehicle, and again someone forced them to expose their faces. When the cameramen stopped shooting, the arrested patrons were asked to move to a different, unmarked vehicle. There were seven people inside the vehicle, but only five of them reached Camp Karingal because the other two had already paid the policemen. (Please note that this is contrary to the police report that they brought everyone to Camp Karingal. Accounts from various sources, however, said that only five were arrested).
"Another source inside Camp Karingal said that those arrested were allegedly asked to pay P1,000 each to be allowed to go home. According to this source, who likewise spoke under condition of anonymity, a policeman kept going inside the detention area, saying, ‘Gusto ninyong umuwi, gusto rin naming makauwi kayo. Eh di magtulungan tayo. (You want to go home, we also want you to go home, so let’s just help each other.)’ The next morning, after calling up relatives and friends for help, the group was able to raise P3,500 only. However, upon giving the amount to the policeman, they were told they have to stay until the vehicle from Channel 2, which was parked outside the building, has already left. By 11 a.m., they were allowed to leave."
This incident has raised a storm of protest in the gay and lesbian communities here and abroad. They have written to Channel 2 which, true to form, just ignored all the letters and protests.
Six years ago, the policemen at Camp Karingal also barged into Cine Café along Roces Ave. and hauled 24 gay men into jail. The owner called me up at 4 a.m., I called up the house of then Quezon City Rep. Rey Calalay at 7 a.m., the recently deceased and much-lamented lawmaker who filed a gay-friendly bill in 1995. He said he will call up his lawyer and send him over to the camp. At Camp Karingal, I told the station commander what he must have forgotten: That he cannot hold the gay men in detention beyond 12 hours without booking them, or else, we would sue them for illegal detention. Then Rep. Calalay came, the station commander relented, and released 22 men – except the owner and the manager of the café. The station commander even had this parting shot: ‘Mabuti nga at suwerte kayo wala pa dito ang Channel 2 (You’re lucky Channel 2 isn’t here yet).’ Then and now, the tabloid journalism of Channel 2 and the indelicate ways of the police seemed to have already met and ran on parallel courses.
Victor is a Filipino professional working in the United States. He subscribes to ABS-CBN and was rudely shocked to see this segment one cold winter day in Chicago.
He said, "Of course, ABS-CBN has never been known for professional reporting, rather for smudging the line between journalism and entertainment, between reporting and vaudeville. Still, with their frequent reminders that the station has garnered awards from international groups for their programs, one assumes – or hopes – that their writers, researchers, reporters and anchormen have really risen above tabloid journalism. It seems, however, like a hopeless assumption."
What galls Victor and other people in the gay and lesbian communities is the unthinking commentary foisted by the host Erwin Tulfo at the end of the feature. "In a 100-decibel voice, as though he is... on a circus stand without a megaphone that what these gays and men do in the movie house ‘is shameful...’ He is not the most credible person in the media – not even the most learned – yet in a culture that equates voice volume and airtime frequency with power, he is one of the most influential in shaping public opinion. That people like him are given positions that require sensitivity, responsibility, and – intelligence is dangerous. Just see where the likes of Tito Sotto and Noli de Castro ended up..."
"It is already a tragedy that gays in healthy, loving relationships cannot even hold hands in well-lit public places without being sneered at. It is thus unjust when they are being sought in the dark where society has pushed them to be in the first place. If only media would realize that it is their very cameras and words that keep pushing these gay men to seek comfort and a sense of happiness – however passing, however illusory it may seem to the greater public – in the dark corners of the movie houses and unlit parks. The medium, indeed, is the message, only that many media practitioners know only how to talk and not to read, much less to think."
Victor has cut his expensive subscription to Channel 2 in Chicago and has urged all his friends in the US to do the same. Protest letters have flooded the station, the newspapers, the AdBoard, the Association of Accredited Advertising Agencies, the Philippine Association of National Advertisers, the Kapisanan ng Brodkaster sa Pilipinas and the Commission of Human Rights. The Institute of Human Rights of the University of the Philippines Law Center wants to file a suit against the police, if the witnesses are willing to testify.
As for me, I am coming home in time for the Pride March in June. I will not talk to Channel 2, I will not appear anymore in any of their shows, and I will just stop watching any of their shows. By doing that, I am sure I will feel a miraculous rise in the number of my brain cells.
I hope you do, too.