8 Pampanga teachers scored for detaining 2 journalists

CITY OF SAN FERNANDO — The Pampanga Press Club (PPC) "strongly condemned" yesterday eight teachers of a public high school here for allegedly detaining last Friday a reporter and a cameraman of a local cable news network who had set an interview with the school principal on the charges of anomalies and physical abuse filed against him.

The PPC accused the eight teachers of the Sindalan High School of allegedly "detaining, heaping verbal abuse, and threatening to seize video tapes" of reporter Lanie Ontong, news supervisor of Infomax 8 cable television, and her cameraman, Ignacio Orejas Jr. before noon last Friday.

"The details of the incident left us no room to doubt that what the teachers did were clear forms of media repression," PPC president Ashely Manabat said.

"We can never let this incident pass. If these teachers treat the media this way, I don’t know how they do the ordinary students," he added.

None of the teachers could be contacted for their comments yesterday.

In a complaint with the local police, Ontong and Orejas said the teachers, led by one Ariel Garcia and a certain Cindy, prevented them from leaving the registrar’s office after they took video footages of the school premises.

Ontong and Orejas went to the school to interview its principal, Alfredo Sianen, whom the parent-teachers’ association earlier accused of corruption and physical abuse.

The association has filed a complaint against Sianen with the regional office of the Department of Education.

Ontong and Orejas said they took video clips of the campus after being told by the teachers that Sianen was attending a meeting elsewhere.

After making arrangements for another date for the interview and taking the video footages, the two were allegedly held against their will at the registrar’s office by the teachers who said they had no permit to take the video clips.

The teachers reportedly yelled at them, saying they could not leave the school until the police arrived to investigate them.

Ontong and Orejas then called up their colleagues who sought the intervention of Mayor Oscar Rodriguez.

It was only after the mayor intervened that Ontong and Orejas were released some 20 minutes later.

"It’s a public place. We are a legitimate media organization. And we properly identified ourselves by wearing our media IDs during the conduct of our work," Ontong said.

Infomax is a duly registered media organization, a member of the Philippine Cable Television Association and is being considered as an affiliate of ABS-CBN Channel 2.

Ontong has been the chief of I-Max News, a daily news program, since 2003.

"I find it uncalled for on the part of educators to treat professional and honest journalists like Ms. Ontong and Mr. Orejas in this very rough manner," Rodriguez said. The mayor urged city school officials to look into the incident.

Maureen Aquino, Infomax general manager, said they are preparing criminal and administrative charges against the teachers.