DIPOLOG CITY – ‘I was shooed like a dog,’ says ABS-CBN stringer Dynah Diestro after she was driven out of Zambo del Norte governor’s office Thursday morning.
Local media practitioners here condemn Zamboanga del Norte Governor Roberto Y. Uy’s shooing away from the Office of the Governor of an ABS-CBN stringer, who was covering the visit of four senators February 17.
Dynah Diestro, who was ABS-CBN regional reporter before the network closed down, said she was positioning her camera inside the governor’s office when she noticed Uy pointing his fingers are her.
That time Senator Win Gatchalian was already seated while Senators Joel Villanueva, JV Ejercito and Juan Miguel Zubiri were on their way to the Office of the Governor.
“At first I thought it was just some friendly gesture since I have been covering him in the past years, so waved at the governor, but then he gestured for me to get out,” the visibly irked Diestro said.
She just stood up for a while until Dapitan City Vice Mayor Jimboy Chan went near her and whispered, “Governor Uy wanted her to get out of the office.”
“I was shooed like a dog, and as I was on my way out, I overheard the governor saying ‘she’s writing negative stories about him and the province.’”
Diestro is known in Zamboanga del Norte as a straightforward and professional broadcast journalist.
“Governor Uy, you have to remember that your office is not your office, that’s the office of the people of Zamboanga del Norte,” Diestro said.
Meanwhile, some local journalists condemned what they said as the governor’s act of arrogance and ignorance.
Mark Bacroya, a broadcast journalist of Radio Mindanao Network’s (RMN) DxDR radio station said that Uy’s behavior did not only curtail the freedom of the press, but “it also insulted the entire media community and the people of the province.
“Government officials must open to the press because it is normal that you do not like all the news,” Bacroya continued, “they should not be onion-skinned because there times that the media write, broadcast or post stories they don’t like,” Bacroya said.
He added that officials must know before joining public service that they would be subjected to scrutiny by the media.“By what he did, the governor just showed that he has no manners,” Bacroya said.-Gualberto Laput
