Media brokers come under heat for allegedly threatening whistleblower to protect Dutertes

Journalists have been called to hearings of the House of Representatives probing into the Duterte war on drugs, and often it’s to testify on stories done to expose state abuses in the campaign.

But not so for Paul Gutierrez and Benny Antiporda, members of the National Press Club who were former media practitioners who got government appointments under Duterte. Both were called on Thursday, November 7, to appear before the House quad committee because they allegedly threatened a whistleblower not to name any members of the Duterte family in a tell-all testimony.

Jimmy Guban, a former Customs intelligence officer who is now detained over his alleged ties to the P11-billion smuggled shabu in Cavite in 2018, told the lower house that Gutierrez went to his holding room in the Senate to threaten him not to mention the names of Davao City First District Representative Paolo Duterte and lawyer Mans Carpio, the husband of Vice President Sara Duterte.

Guban repeated on Thursday his claim that their investigation showed Paolo Duterte, Mans Carpio, and former presidential economic adviser Michael Yang were behind the shabu smuggled through magnetic lifters. Paolo Duterte has already denied this accusation.

Guban added: “‘Yun din ang sinasabi ni Paul Gutierrez sa advice sa kanya ni Benny Antiporda na huwag na huwag kong babanggitin during the hearing [sa Senate] kaya si Colonel Acierto ang naisip kong isakripisyo ang buhay para po kami lahat ligtas.” (That’s what Paul Gutierrez, upon the advice of Benny Antiporda, told me not to say in the Senate hearing. So I thought I would use Colonel Acierto as a sacrificial lamb so all of us can be safe.)

Acierto is a former anti-drug police operative who has openly accused Yang of being part of the drug trade. He is in hiding and evading the warrant of arrest issued over the smuggled shabu case, for which Guban has been convicted. Guban turned emotional on Thursday as he and Acierto told the committee that some of their colleagues involved in the same operation have either been killed or gone missing.

Affidavit

Guban said in his affidavit: “…when I was in the Senate, a media representative Paul Gutierrez who worked as staff of Secretary Benny Antiporda came to my room…[and told me], ‘Huwag na huwag mong babanggitin ang mga pangalan nina Pulong, Mans at Michael Yang, alam naman namin kung saan ka nakatira, at ang pamilya mo.” (Don’t you dare mention the name of Pulong, Mans, and Michael Yang, because we know where you live and where your family lives.)

Gutierrez said he “categorically denies the lies being spread by Mr. Guban.” Gutierrez indeed confirmed visiting Guban in his detention cell in the Senate, but he said it was just to get a quote from him as part of his coverage as People’s Journal Tonight reporter.

Antiporda, a former newspaper reporter turned environment undersecretary under Duterte, also denied it.

When Guban first mentioned this in an earlier hearing, Gutierrez’s role as chief of the Presidential Task Force on Media Security (PTFOMS) ended, with him claiming his tenure just expired. PTFOMS was useless to journalists as it was also notorious for dismissing some journalist killings as being unrelated to the profession. It even had a hand in red-tagging journalists instead of protecting them.

Gutierrez’s answers did not satisfy lawmakers, who could not believe that a reporter would go through all the trouble of accessing a detained whistleblower only because he was “curious kung siya ba talaga ay may sakit (if he really was sick),” as Gutierrez described it.

Gutierrez claimed he has newspaper clippings of the stories published out of that visit, which lasted for only three minutes. This riled up Lanao del Sur 1st District Representative Zia Alonto Adiong, who said a reporter wanting an exclusive interview would spend more than three minutes.

Gutierrez said the short visit was enough for a story.

In fairness, reporters — especially those who work on investigative stories — resort to such visits, long or short, just to confirm or verify information. Contrary to Adiong’s statement that reporters only cover official proceedings, many journalists go beyond officialdom to dig for the truth.

If the accusation against Gutierrez of threatening a whistleblower to protect the powers-that-be is proven to be true, it would be a clear violation of journalistic ethical standards.

Gutierrez was also director and president of the NPC, which had been at odds with press freedom advocates over time. – Rappler.com