Bayan Muna national president Satur Ocampo welcomed the 2025 Media Electoral Agenda presented to the Commission on Elections (Comelec) and representatives of several political parties in a forum in Quezon City earlier today.
Ocampo said he “very much agrees” with all the demands in the agenda and expressed delight in several items, including those against red-tagging, the abolition of the NTF-ELCAC (National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict), the repeal of the Anti-Terrorism Act and other repressive laws, and the enactment of a human rights defenders bill.
“Bayan Muna supports the 2025 Media Electoral Agenda given to us this morning. We have fought for these and we will continue to fight for these when we return to Congress,” the former lawmaker told Kodao.
Himself a journalist since his college days in both the Philippine College of Commerce (now the Polytechnic of the Philippines) and the Lyceum of the Philippines in the 1950s, Ocampo said he made sure to attend the “Midyang Responsable, Mapanuring Botante” forum by the Philippine Press Institute where the agenda was presented.
Comelec chairperson Jorge Erwin Garcia and other political parties also attended the forum.
The agenda, signed by 35 media and other organizations as well as nine media personalities, was spearheaded by the Media Safety Movement.
It also demands the enactment of a freedom of information law, the decriminalization of libel, passage of a media workers welfare law, the non-curtailment of rights in the guise of fighting “fake news,” the addressing of gender-based attacks against journalists, and accountability of perpetrators of media killings.
READ: The 2025 Media Electoral Agenda
Fight against repressive policies and laws
In their call against red-tagging, the journalists cited the 2024 Supreme Court ruling against the practice that endangers the lives and liberty of its victims.
“[President Ferdinand] Marcos Jr. should issue an executive order denouncing the practice of red-tagging, and abolish the National (NTF-ELCAC) and similar organizations which are notorious in red-tagging journalists and human rights defenders,” the petition said.
The agenda also condemned the “increasing use” of anti-terrorism laws against rights defenders and journalists, citing the findings of United Nations special rapporteurs Ian Fry and Irene Khan.
The agenda named Frenchie Mae Cumpio and Deo Montesclaros as victims of the use of the Anti-Terrorism Financing Law against independent journalists.
The signatories of the petition added they are supportive of the enactment of a law protecting human rights defenders for the larger enjoyment, fulfillment, and promotion of human rights.
“Freedom from intimidation or reprisal and the right against defamation, stigmatization and vilification with a clause for liability of concerned government personnel will protect our job as truth-tellers,” the signatories said.
Ocampo said he will present the 2025 Media Electoral Agenda to fellow Bayan Muna officials and members for immediate adoption.
He pointed out that Bayan Muna had always defended press freedom, as during the ABS-CBN franchise struggle under the Rodrigo Duterte government in 2020.
He said that aside from himself, Bayan Muna second nominee Carlos Zarate, Bayan Muna ninth nominee Lean Porquia, and Bayan Muna former Representative and Makabayan candidate for the Senate are and were members of the working press.
Garcia meanwhile said he will “thoroughly study” the agenda. # (Raymund B. Villanueva)
