Newsbreak editor posts bail; fate of 4 colleagues still hangs

Newsbreak online editor Gemma Bagayaua Mendoza posted bail Thursday morning but her four other colleagues accused of libel were not yet off the hook. Radio station dzBB reported that Bagayaua's lawyer was able to post a P10,500-bail bond before the Pasig regional trial court. However, the court refused to accept bond payments for her fellow Newsbreak journalists Maritess Danguilan-Vitug, Aries Rufo, Lala Rimando and Maan Hontiveros. The four were required to turn themselves over to the Pasig police so they may be issued "certificates of the detention" before being allowed to post bail. Bagayaua's lawyer, Rogelio Vinluan, told dzBB radio that this was a "small technicality" that they were will to comply with. "We are going to the police precinct so the police can issue certificates of detention and they can pay bail bonds," Vinluan said in an interview with dzBB. He added in Filipino that, "this (certificate of detention) is not really necessary but that is the requirement of the court so we will follow it." Bagayaua spent the night at a Pasig City police headquarters after plainclothes lawmen arrested her in connection with a P100-million libel suit filed by Ilocos Sur Gov. Luis "Chavit" Singson, a senatorial candidate under the administration's Team Unity ticket. Earlier, Bagayaua's P 10,000 bail was not accepted by the clerk of court in Pasig City because the head of the police warrant department was not in his office to sign the papers for bail posting. The fate that befell Bagauaya caught the attention of Akbayan party-list Rep. Risa Hontiveros, a former television newscaster and elder sister of broadcast journalist Pia Hontiveros. In a statement, Hontiveros said: "In all honesty, Bagauaya and her fellow editors in Newsbreak did more to the country than the woman squatting in Malacañang right now." She added that, "brave women journalists like Bagauaya and Newsbreak editors Maritess Danguilan Vitug and Glenda Gloria deserve awards, not warrants of arrest." Speaking before hundreds of women from the Alliance of Progressive Labor and Akbayan for the commemoration of the Women's Day, Hontiveros also called on women voters to junk Singson, who is seeking a Senate seat under the administration's Team Unity. "The libel case he filed against Newsbreak was an assault to a tradition of truth that women journalists like Bagauaya, Gloria and Vitug honor – to take a stance that is uncompromising, because the truth demands nothing less," she said. Hontiveros then reminded Singson that it was the bravery of these women that toppled the Estrada administration in January 2001. "It was the likes of Chavit that moved the nation. It was the independence of women journalists and the courage of ordinary citizens that led to the ouster of Estrada." - GMANews.TV