Media ask SC to allow live coverage of Maguindanao massacre case verdict

Several journalists' groups and news outfits have asked the Supreme Court to allow the live coverage and streaming of the reading of the anticipated verdict on the Maguindanao massacre case on December 19.

The National Union of Journalists of the Philippines, the Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility, and the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism also requested the court to designate a media area during the promulgation of judgment at Camp Bagong Diwa in Taguig City.

They were supported by the editors and heads of several Manila-based and regional news outfits, including GMA Network, ABS-CBN, News5, the Philippine Daily Inquirer, Philstar.com, Rappler, Vera Files, MindaNews, and the Foreign Correspondents Association of the Philippines.

In their letter to Chief Justice Diosdado Peralta, the organizations said a live coverage or streaming will allow the families of the massacre's 58 victims who may not be able to go to Metro Manila to hear the reading of the ruling live.

Mostly based in General Santos City, South Cotabato, Sultan Kudarat, and Maguindanao, not all the families can fly to Manila, they said.

"The promulgation is the culmination of their fight for justice at the lower court," they said.

They added that a live coverage will "boost the public's trust on transparency and accountability of court processes, particularly in how fair and just the case has been decided."

They said it will not prejudice the rights of those charged and will not affect any of the case's substantive matters.

SC ruling on live coverage

In June 2011, the Supreme Court initially allowed live radio and television coverage of the trial, under certain conditions like requiring media entities to apply for broadcast and to continuously broadcast a hearing with no commercial breaks.

The guidelines also disallowed the media from re-airing recordings of the trial and giving annotations while the hearing is ongoing.

But in a subsequent ruling in October 2012, the court scrapped live coverage altogether but allowed audio-visual recordings of the trial for documentary purposes and for transmittal in closed-circuit viewing areas within the Camp Bagong Diwa premises and trial court in Maguindanao, Koronadal, South Cotabato, and General Santos City, where relatives of the victims currently reside.

The High Court, three years later, upheld the live coverage ban.

The long-awaited verdict will be issued by Quezon City Judge Jocelyn Solis-Reyes, who has had to hear hundreds of witnesses and go through hundreds of volumes of cases records over the course of a nine-year trial that ended only last August.

When the trial wrapped up, 101 people remained charged with multiple murder. Around 80 are still at large. The accused include members of the Ampatuan political clan, including brothers Andal Jr., Sajid, and Zaldy. Their father, Andal Sr., who was also a suspect, died in 2015, while battling advanced stage liver cancer.

Prosecutors have accused them of conspiring to plot and carry out what was alleged to be the politically-motivated murder of 58 people, including 32 members of the media, on a hill in Ampatuan town, Maguindanao on November 23, 2009.

The victims were on their way to file the candidacy of Esmael "Toto" Mangudadatu in the 2010 gubernatorial elections. His wife, two sisters, and supporters died in the massacre. Six of the victims were not part of the convoy.

The incident is considered the Philippines' worst case of election-related violence and the single deadliest attack on journalists since detailed records were kept. — MDM, GMA News