DAVAO mayor and presidential candidate Rodrigo Duterte has threatened to skip the scheduled presidential debate in the city if local journalists are not given a fair share in the coverage of the event.
“I will not go there also. If it’s like that, you limit the [press coverage]. Why?” Duterte told reporters after his appearance at the thanksgiving prayer of close friend The Rev. Apollo Quiboloy in Buhangin, Davao, on Sunday night.
“Kaya nga ako tumatakbong president because I want people from the provinces to be given equal treatment. Kaya ako ay for federalism,” Duterte said.
He however said he was confident that the Comelec would find time to dialogue with local press organizations of the host cities of the debates, and strike a win-win solution.
“It would be unfortunate,” he said, “if the local media will feel they are being treated as second-class citizens in the press community.”
Duterte said he would discuss the matter further with PDP-Laban president Sen. Aquilino Pimentel III.
The Cagayan de Oro Press Club (COPC) earlier said there were calls from some city-based journalists to boycott the presidential debate even as it decried what looked to its officers and members as a case of “discrimination” of the provincial press by Manila-based organizers.
The COPC protested plans to allow only a select few to be in the debate venue at the Capitol University (CU) while the rest would only be allowed in a media center away from where the presidential candidates would be debating.
The debates are sponsored by media giant GMA-7, Philippine Daily Inquirer, and the Kapisanan ng mga Brodkaster ng Pilipinas (KBP).
“We are making a distinction between those who are invited as members of the debate audience, basically a studio audience, from the general audience which will be inside the auditorium but not within the debate hall, meaning the stage area and audience area fronting it,” said Rey Hulog of the KBP. “We just want to make sure that we are inviting legitimate press members.”
COPC president Msgr. Elmer Abacahin said it was not for the debate organizers to choose who to allow inside the debate area to ensure that participating journalists are “legit local press” because the media community in the city “would know better.”
“The (Duterte-Cayetano) team advocates Federalism precisely to give locals in the regions their fair share from too capital-centric policies and even attitudes,” campaign media head Peter Tiu Laviña said.
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