A black day for Press Freedom in Cebu

For our special presentation on our Talkshow on Straight from the Sky, we bring you serious discussion or call it a warning to parents about dangerous vaccines. Way back in 2008, CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta came up with a report that vaccines may have caused autism. Of course there are studies to the con-trary. But the debate on this case continues up to today.

Last year, we warned you in a column about the sinister plan by the Bill & Belinda Gates Foundation wherein they donated a billion dollars to give free vaccines to children in 3rd world countries with the solitary purpose of making these children sterile when they grow up. Yes…if that happens to your child, chances are good that you will never see your grandchildren when your kids get into the marrying age. So are we getting those vaccines in Cebu?

Our guest tonight is a frequent guest on our talkshow. He is other than Dr. Rene Bullecer, country director of Human Life International and totally trusted by the Catholic Church hierarchy. What Dr. Bullecer reveals on this show is that for Cebu City, the Cebu City Health Office is planning to give vac-cines to eight-year-olds and 14-year-olds. Dr. Bullecer suspects that Gardasil, the vaccine for Human papillomavirus (HPV) may be given free to children. This is the problem in this country…whenever something is given free…parents don't care to check  whether it is harmful to children.

We're not trying to be alarmist here. But HPV was recently in the news that the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program has awarded US$5 million to 49 victims against HPV vaccines. This only shows that we cannot trust the vaccines that are given to our children. So we ask parents not to trust what is given to their children until they know what is being given to them even if it is free. So watch this very interesting show with Dr. Rene Bullecer on SkyCable's channel 61 at 8 PM with replays on MyTV on M-W-F.

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Wow its September already? The "Ber" months is upon us and don't be surprised if and when you hear some stores in the downtown area playing Christmas songs. That's the Philippines for you…Christmas just comes too soon. September is also the time for the Cebu Media to celebrate Press Free-dom Week on the week of Sept. 21st, where the Cebu Media celebrates the 19th celebration of Press Freedom in Cebu. Mind you, there are no such cele-brations with our media counterparts in Metro Manila.

Cebu's Press Freedom Week coincides with Sept. 21, 1972 the day when former president Ferdinand E. Marcos was transformed from Presi-dent of the Philippines to dictator. When Marcos declared Martial Law, the first victims aside from his political opponents were the media. I recall how the late Sir Max Soliven would tell me details of his arrest…via a xeroxed copy of his Arrest, Search & Seizure Order signed by then Martial Law im-plementer Defense Secretary Juan Ponce Enrile and how he spent four months in jail with the late Sen. Benigno "Ninoy" Aquino Jr.

When the Conjugal Marcos Dictatorship was overthrown during the EDSA People's Power Revolt, press freedom was fully restored. So you may ask, are the members of the Philippine Press or the Cebu Media truly free to speak their minds? As for me…I can say that this is true in Cebu. But not in Manila. But the difference today as compared to 1986 is that, we now have the social networking sites like Twitter or Facebook and blogs by people who write in mainstream media, so we have to be responsible for our articles.

Just as September came…we heard the sad news that the libel case filed by former governor Gwen F. Garcia against Freeman columnist Leo Lastimosa who is also DyAB's top radio personality was promulgated. Judge Raphael Yrastorza, Sr. in a 38-page decision found Leo Lastimosa guilty of libel for his Freeman column entitled, "Si Doling Kawatan."

I don't want to go into the details of this case…because I also write for The Freeman…and in many occasions Leo and I disagreed on many subjects. However as we all say…I will defend to the death Leo's constitutional right to write what he wants. But as his fellow journalist with The Freeman, I'm disgusted by this decision by Judge Yrastorza Sr. because there have been a lot of efforts from the Supreme Court and even in the Halls of Congress to decriminalize libel. But as we all know…nothing in this stupid country of ours ever gets fixed!

That his decision came out this close to Cebu's Press Freedom Week, you can expect that the outrage of the media will be heard for the whole month of September. Already the radio broadcasters are lambasting this de-cision on the airwaves. Remember in a libel case…one has to prove that the writer had malice when he wrote the article. Malice is, of course, difficult to prove. But Leo Lastimosa can still make an appeal to the same court and if that is not reversed…then he can go to the Court of Appeals. But until then, we hope that his conviction would be reversed in the name of Free Speech!

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For email responses to this article, write to [email protected].  or [email protected]. His columns can be accessed through www.philstar.com.