Journalists from Davao City released a statement Tuesday condemning the harassment that they and their colleagues experienced with members of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ.
The harassment took place during the 16-day standoff between the KOJC and the Philippine National Police, while the latter was trying to serve a warrant of arrest on KOJC founder, purported son of god and self-styled flock leader Apollo Quiboloy.
In the statement entitled “Our bias is for the Truth,” the journalists said those covering the standoff experienced verbal abuse, threats, harassment, intimidation, and humiliation from KOJC members who were insisting that the media report only the religious group’s version of events.
The journalists also said they witnessed how disinformation, half-truths and lies spread like wildfire on social media, “even before we could bat an eye and check where they came from and verify.”
A MindaNews report provided details of the harassment: KOJC members repeatedly heckling reporters as “bayaran,” “biased,” “one-sided,” and “fake news,” asking, during a prayer meeting, for it to rain fire to burn the paid media, warning them that they would be cursed by the pastor for siding with the police, shooing away reporters trying to cover the standoff, and taking photos and videos of the working journalists and even their screens.
KOJC members also joined reporter huddles to listen to their conversations and heckle them, disrupted streetside interviews by shouting “biased” or “bayaran,” and asked unrelated questions.
They also jeered and heckled television journalists doing live reports, as well as threatened reporters who would “slant” the news .
“You know what KOJC will do. So you report properly,” one such message on a Viber thread read.
“It is not our role to carry your propaganda line or push your own agenda,” the journalists said in their statement.
“Our role is to deliver timely, relevant, accurate information to the public, information that will allow them to take part meaningfully as citizens in a functioning democracy.”
Quiboloy is facing charges of sexual abuse, child abuse, and qualified human trafficking. He was arrested at the KOJC compound on September 8.
We give our full support to the Davao journalists and condemn uncivilized behavior toward all members of the media who are simply doing their job.
We can imagine how some powerful interest groups may operate on the delusion that they could control the narrative through a combination of antics mentioned above.
Admittedly, such methods have worked in the past, in varying degrees of success. But democracy and press freedom are always moving targets, and every day is an opportunity to do better and elevate the level of discourse. Ultimately, Filipinos should be enabled to make informed democratic decisions that will determine the quality of life of our nation.
They will make these decisions based on what is provided them by media.
Woe, then, to those who believe that the press is malleable or that it would cower amid threats. Those tired lines maligning the media have long been exposed for what they truly are.
