EDITORIAL — Lip service

Did the city prosecutor who dismissed a complaint for grave scandal against a couple caught having sex in a car parked in the basement parking area of a popular mall really say it was all right to have sex in a car?

This is surprising because a close reading and rereading of the stories regarding the dismissal of the case never had the prosecutor, Liceria Rabillas, actually saying that " sex inside car is ok."

What Rabillas actually said in the published reports was that there could not have been a public scandal because no people congregate in parking lots and that the only people who go there are those who want to get their cars.

Besides, Rabillas said, it was established that the car had tinted windows and that what went on inside the vehicle cannot be seen from the outside. At least one other prosecutor, whose identity was not made clear, said a private car can be an extension of a private home.

Again, nowhere in the stories was there any attribution to Rabillas or any other fiscal as having actually said it was ok to have sex in a car. Perhaps that is the thought that can be inferred. But in the matter of journalistic attribution, there is no room for second-guessing.

We bring this up because the Cebu media have just emerged from their latest celebration of Press Freedom Week, during which one of the activities was a meeting of the Cebu-Citizens Press Council.

This paper was the last to be convinced that the CCPC would work in its mission of addressing complaints on fairness and accuracy and strengthening ethical practice among mediamen. But having been so convinced, it vowed to commit its heart to that mission.

That is why it feels concerned and dismayed that, still within Press Freedom Week, though on the last day, accounts on this story would surface that do not seem to do coincide with that commitment. It is hoped that this whole thing was nothing more than plain inadvertence.