Duterte’s ban on Rappler reporter sends disturbing signal —CMFR exec

President Rodrigo Duterte's decision to ban Rappler reporter Pia Ranada from covering his events sends "a disturbing signal" to media workers, an official of the Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility said on Thursday.

"I think the banning is always a sign of wanting to have more control, of silencing critics, of cutting down the richness and diversity of opinion," CMFR executive director Melinda Quintos de Jesus told GMA News Online.

"Whether it is legal that they do it or not is not the point, the point is it is a very disturbing signal when government cannot allow that kind of access to someone who has work," she added.

De Jesus urged the public to question this act of the present administration against a media organization who has been critical of the government.

"This goes against so much of what we have gained as a democratic country," De Jesus said.

Ranada, on Tuesday, was barred from covering the Go Negosyo 10th Filipina Entrepreneurship Summit at the World Trade Center in Pasay City, where President Rodrigo Duterte was expected to speak.

Women's rights

De Jesus also slammed Duterte for his supposedly "contradicting" positions as regards upholding the dignity of women in society.

"It is not just believable because if his main dynamic is to diminish women, to call them that their only power is on their vagina... It contradicts everything, hindi magkatugma so dapat kuwestiyonin din, ano ba talaga ang paninidigan niyo sa mga kababaihan?" De Jesus said.

Duterte previously made controversial remarks against women.

He once made a joke saying he should have had a turn in the gang rape of an Australian missionary who was killed by her captors.

Duterte also told government troops in Iligan City that he would back them up if they committed rape.

The Chief Executive, in a speech in front of former communists, also mentioned shooting women fighters in their vaginas to make them useless.

Women's rights advocates had called out Duterte for his remarks.

Harry Roque, his spokesperson, maintained that Duterte is serious in promoting and protecting the rights of women in the country. —NB, GMA News