As of posting time, journalists have been required by the military authorities to evacuate Barangay (village) Sta. Catalina because of heavy firefighting.
The following is a summary of the Charter for the Safety of Journalists Working in War Zones or Dangerous Areas adopted by the Reporters Sans Frontieres or Reporters Without Borders:
(Intro. gist) International law requires the warring parties to provide protection to journalists working in war zones. Employers must also provide basic protection, compensation, and guarantees. The following eight principles apply:
Principle 1. Commitment. (gist) Media organizations, the State, and journalists must reduce risks by exchanging useful information, providing enough preparation, equipment, insurance.
Principle 2. Free Will. (gist) Covering armed conflict must always be voluntary. A reporter and/ or his/her crew has the right to refuse the assignment, or to terminate it even while in the field.
Principle 3. Experience. (gist) Only experienced reporters shall be sent to a war zone. Those who are covering combat for the first time must be accompanied by an experienced colleague. After the assignment, editors must provide a debriefing to cull lessons.
Principle 4. Preparation. (gist) Training in how to cope in war zones, how to reduce risks, and how to conduct first aid, must be regularly provided.
Principle 5. Equipment. (gist) Editors should provide war correspondents and their crew with enough safety equipment such as bullet-proof vests, helmets and, if possible, armored vehicles,
communication equipment (locator beacons) and survival and first-aid kits.
Principle 6. Insurance (gist). Before sending reporters and their crew to dangerous assignments, editors must provide insurance for illness, repatriation, disability and loss of life and comply with all professional obligations and agreements.
Principle 7. Psychological counselling. (gist) Media management must ensure that reporters and their crew, if they so desire, have access to psychological counselling after returning from a dangerous assignment.
Principle 8. Legal protection. (gist). Under Protocol 2 of the Geneva Conventions, journalists are considered civilians and entitled to protection. Any attack on journalists that causes their death or injury is a breach of the Protocol and is considered a war crime.
– Summary of the Charter for the Safety of Journalists Working in War Zones adopted by the Reporters sans Frontieres
The President said yesterday in a press briefing that it was not necessary for him to declare a state of emergency in Zamboanga.
A so-called declaration of a state of emergency by the President does not confer any additional or extraordinary powers on the President. In fact, if by a mere declaration from the President, it confers nothing.
The commander—in-chief powers of the President are:
1)The “calling-out” power or the power to call out the armed forces to prevent or suppress lawless violence, etc. (the power to deploy the armed forces to any part of the country to quell rebellion, invasion, lawless violence, etc.)
2) the power to suspend the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus (when the President suspends the privilege of the writ, he could detain or order the detention of a person — but the Constitution requires only for rebellion or related offenses and that such detainee be charged within three days);
3)martial law.
The so-called emergency powers (as distinguished from the commander-in-chief powers) refer to when the President asks Congress to authorize him by law to exercise extraordinary powers, such as the take-over of public utilities – this can only be done by legislative enactment from Congress.
You can condemn this to death until you’re blue in the face, and you can release tons of press releases on how many laws have been violated … but in the quiet of your situation room (i hope you are already working in your situation room and I hope it is orderly) you’ll still need to draw up scenarios and how to resolve each of them.
Just some notes:
ISA LANG ANG MAGSASALITA! [rough translation: there should only be one pointman as far as releasing the public statements are concerned – the English translation is more modulated]. Here, you have a local AFP spokesperson releasing info on hostages, a national AFP spokesperson talking about the captors, a local mayor talking about the instructions given by the President, a local governor talking about the peace talks, a Palace spokesperson talking about lawlessness, etc. etc.
Since lives are at stake here, it might be a good idea to assign only one spokesperson, and this policy should bind all officials. Pagsabihan mo yung mga nagsasalita nang hindi authorized.
This one pointman should clear whatever he/she will say with the crisis committee. Please. Hwag kayo bara-bara at magulo.
Second, for the flow of information, this situation can be considered as — to use the words of the Supreme Court in a case on prior restraint– “tantamount to war” , such that you are authorized to establish a liaison with the news media to ensure that… lives are not put at greater risk (i can’t use certain words so i hope you’ve caught on… ok, i hope you got this.) You need to appoint a pointman (another pointman for liaison aside from the crisis spokesperson) who is not stupid and who is respected by the news media. Liaison ito. The release and flow of information on the following can be controlled in a situation “tantamount to war”: number and location of troops, troop movements, oplan, details of talks, etc. etc., this is a list, you can ask media law students, i don’t want to be too talkative where hostages are involved.
The rest are operational and I probably should not write about them (like… you should not assign grandstanding politicians as negotiators, etc. etc…).
