Jacob Baluyot, the student-journalist subpoenaed by the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) over violence during the Sept. 21 anticorruption protests, declined to be questioned by police in a letter sent to their office on Friday morning.
Baluyot was among four individuals whom the CIDG subpoenaed for questioning, alleging that the respondents were ‘leaders’ of groups behind the riot at Mendiola after the Baha Sa Luneta rally.
‘Upon legal advice, I must respectfully decline to participate in these proceedings to protect my rights as guaranteed under the Constitution and applicable laws,’ Baluyot told the CIDG in a copy of the letter sent to the Inquirer.
He further maintained that the CIDG’s probe ‘constitutes a custodial investigation,’ citing Article III, Section 12 of the 1987 Constitution, which pertains to his right to remain silent and have legal counsel.
‘By being subpoenaed as an alleged ‘leader,’ I am effectively being treated as a suspect, not merely as a witness,’ Baluyot stressed.
‘I attended the anti-corruption assemblies in Luneta and Mendiola in my capacity as a campus journalist to cover the event for reportage. I had no involvement in any of the alleged violent incidents,’ he said.
Baluyot is a third-year journalism student at the Polytechnic University of the Philippines, Sta Mesa, and is associate editor of their official campus publication, The Catalyst.
According to him, the subpoena was dated Oct. 3, and his father received it for him at their Manila home while he was in class on Oct. 7.
Additionally, Baluyot’s legal counsel at the Public Interest Law Center expressed ‘grave concern’ over the CIDG subpoena.
‘The issuance of subpoenas against journalists covering public assemblies is a dangerous precedent,’ it said in a statement on Friday.
‘It chills legitimate reporting, undermines press freedom, and weaponizes investigative processes against those performing constitutionally protected functions,’ it added.
`Orchestrated witch hunt’
In a phone interview with the Inquirer last Wednesday, Baluyot condemned the move to subpoena him and another student-leader over the riot as an ‘orchestrated witch hunt against youth activists and campus journalists.’
The other student-leader subpoenaed was Kabataan Kontra Korapsyon officer Aldrin Kitsune, a film student at the De La Salle – College of Saint Benilde who likewise denied any involvement with the riot.
Another of the subpoenaed individuals, who identified himself as Park Alamada Pangawilan, was the lone respondent to appear before the CIDG last Monday and similarly denied that he instigated the violence.
During the Mendiola riot, law enforcement officers arrested over 200 individuals – around 80 of whom were minors, prompting human rights groups to condemn the police for supposedly not exercising maximum tolerance.
The anticorruption protests stemmed from alleged anomalies in infrastructure projects, particularly those for flood control.
CIDG to respect student journo’s rights
Asked for comment, CIDG Director, Maj. Gen. Robert Alexander Morico II said the unit, as the Philippine National Police’s (PNP) primary investigative arm, was mandated to probe ‘high-profile crimes.’
The CIDG previously cited Republic Act No. 10973 as the basis for its authority to subpoena individuals for its investigations and to file a case before a regional trial court for indirect contempt if they fail to appear.
‘The exercise of his subpoena power extends to all persons regardless of one’s social status, profession or gender, and whether the person to whom the subpoena was issued perceives himself as a suspect or otherwise,’ Morico said in a message to reporters on Friday.
‘Rest assured that statutory and constitutional rights of every person subpoenaed by the CIDG, under my watch, shall be accorded and respected by the CIDG,’ he added. /mr