The warrant for Cheche Lazaro
Branch 47 of the Pasay City Metropolitan Trial Court is on the second floor of the Hall of Justice, a short walk from the Municipal Office. Outside its door is a torn paper sign, gone brittle with age, the branch number printed with graying ink. Inside, at half-past noon on a Friday, there is an air of expectation. The floors are white and spotless; untidy piles of paper are being marshaled into order, and a little girl in purple is having her hair brushed by a doting mama. Is she here, they ask, is she coming?
The last is addressed to me, asked with a wistful air by a plump woman in a mustard-colored blouse. I tell them I’m from the media myself, and this seems to assure them. Mama pats down her little girl’s dress, a clerk steps out to check for any sign of the woman whose name caused all the bustle. And then, after a few false alarms, there is word that she is already in the building, a result of criminal case M-PSY-09-09532-CR, The People of the Philippines versus The Accused, Cecilia L. Lazaro (at large).
The woman the public knows as Cheche Lazaro paused outside the branch court, then walked straight into the narrow aisle between the staff’s desks. The middle-aged clerk in mustard-yellow thrusts out a hand, then bounces on the balls of her feet even after Lazaro passed her with a handshake and a smile. Lazaro is 63 years old, has been serving as a journalist for 22 years, and is here to post bail after a warrant was issued for her arrest. Official receipt No. 0291175 puts her fees at P12,000, with P500 in additional expenses.
The information on her case states that 2nd Assistant Prosecutor Dolores P. Rillera accuses Lazaro of violating Republic Act 4200, otherwise known as the Anti-Wiretapping Act. The law declares it unlawful “for any person, not being authorized by all the parties to any private communication or spoken word” to “record such communication or spoken word,” to “knowingly possess” any such record, or “to replay the same for any other person or persons; or to communicate the contents thereof, either verbally or in writing, or to furnish transcriptions thereof, whether complete or partial, to any other person.”
In early November of 2008, Lazaro and her Probe Productions staff put together a story detailing the complaints of schoolteachers against the Government Service Insurance System. At the time of the show’s airing, the teachers were demanding that the GSIS pay them millions worth of pension currently being withheld. The government entity claimed that certain government institutions had not been timely with forwarding the contributions of teachers – contributions automatically deducted from salaries. Winston Garcia, GSIS head, decreed the reduction of payouts to teachers, even those who could prove they had paid their premiums, to compensate for the total amount of contributions still due the GSIS.
The Probe story, called “Perwisyong Benepisyo,” interviewed a number of affected teachers as well as Education Secretary Jesli Lapus, who himself was against the GSIS move. Probe attempted to air the side of the GSIS, but received a letter denying a camera interview. That they denied the request for interview would have been sufficient, but GSIS vice president Ella Valencerina of the Public Relations and Communications Office added in her latter that it was due to their experience that “most of the news reports aired in Lopez-owned media entities were biased against the GSIS.” The letter ended with a request that should Probe continue pursuing the story, it air also their letter explaining the GSIS refusal.
Lazaro called Valencerina on November 10 to again attempt to include the side of the GSIS in the Probe story. And so, in the information signed by the assistant city prosecutor, “On or about the 10th day of November, the above-named accused, Cecilia L. Lazaro, not being authorized by Ella C. Valencerina … did then and there willfully, unlawfully and feloniously, with the use of a cellular phone … secretly recorded the said conversation.”
The transcript of that conversation is now in the possession of Branch Court 47. It is obvious just how felonious Lazaro was, and her willful violation of the rights of one Ms Valencerina.
“I’m telling you that we are recording this,” says Lazaro, and later informs Valencerina it is habitual for Probe to make transcripts of all interviews.
It defies reason why Branch Court 47’s judge believes that Lazaro secretly recorded the phone conversation, as Valencerina continued speaking to Lazaro – even offering to look into Lazaro’s own pension plan as a University of the Philippines professor, an offer that Lazaro refused. RA 4200 penalizes replaying of all conversations that are recorded without knowledge of the person involved, which, if Lazaro were less than the upstanding journalist she was, would have allowed her to air the entire conversation on national television. She did not, and only aired several seconds that repeated the content of GSIS’ earlier letter.
It is difficult to understand how, in any possible interpretation of the law and of the conversation, being told a conversation was being recorded implied the person recording was doing so in secret. It is all the more stunning that it is possible to sign a warrant for the arrest of one of the most respected journalists in the country for offering the right of reply – at a time when journalists are being threatened for not offering that right enough.
The schoolteachers who were interviewed for that fatal Probe Productions story planted themselves on the front steps of the Pasay City Hall of Justice. They were refused entry, the whole grim, black-shirted lot, until one of the Probe Productions’ staff demanded exactly why Filipino citizens were being refused entry to a public, government office. The guards gave in; their excuse was that they were merely preventing these people from making noise inside. These same schoolteachers proceeded to march up to the second floor to offer their apologies to the journalist who told their story and was at the moment facing her first arrest warrant.
There are many threats to those who take up the public trust of reporting the news, many have died in the line of duty, others have given up, still others pocket envelopes from politician and celebrity because after all, that’s how the world works. This is a woman whose clear, uncompromising eye and sober belief in the ethics of journalism make it possible to believe in walking the straight, narrow, and often dangerous path of ethical journalism. I am only one among the many journalists in this country who have worked with Cheche Lazaro, and because I am one of hers, I will end this ethically, and state on the record my personal bias against the vindictive and unethical individuals responsible for this woman turning in her mug shots one afternoon in May.
