COMMUNICATIONS Secretary Martin Andanar said on Monday that several Senate reporters who attended the press conference of alleged Davao Death Squad team leader Arthur Lascañas were offered bribes of $1,000 each.
Andanar made the accusation in a TV interview after Lascañas retracted his Senate testimony last year that the DDS did not exist.
Andanar said he could not say if any of the reporters accepted the offer.
“Somebody offered the money but I do not know if they accepted,” Andanar said in Filipino. “Somebody told me about it. That’s the story circulating now—but they did not say if the reporters accepted the huge sum offered by the opposition to topple this administration.”
Andanar declined to say who in the opposition was involved.
“I cannot categorically say [the offer] came from Senator [Antonio] Trillanes [IV],” Andanar said.
“We received information that as much as $1,000 was paid to reporters during the press conference. I will not name my source but there were those who were given this amount to cover the event,” Andanar said.
Journalists covering the Senate shot back at Andanar and demanded he apologize for making an unproven claim.
“We, broadcast, online, and print journalists covering the Senate strongly protest the unsubstantiated and irresponsible claims made by Press Secretary Martin Andanar that reporters were given as much as $1,000 each to cover the press conference of alleged former Davao Death Squad leader Arthur Lascañas this morning. To our knowledge, no such incident occurred. Such practice is not tolerated among Senate reporters,” the journalists said.
“We would like to ask the secretary to prove his allegations as such statements placed our credibility and our respective media entities under a cloud of doubt. Otherwise, we demand a public apology from Secretary Andanar for spreading ‘fake news,’ truly unbecoming of someone who, just a few months ago, came from the media industry,” they added.
Trillanes also denied Andanar’s accusation.
“First of all, I categorically deny that I gave [or somebody else] gave $1,000 to reporters who covered our press conference. We don’t do that and we highly respect the Senate media,” he said.
“I believe this is just to divert the issue of the President’s complicity in multiple murders,” Trillanes added. With Macon Ramos-Araneta
