TACLOBAN CITY — When K5 News reporter Carol Medino raised her camera outside the gates of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) Regional Office 8 in Palo, Leyte, she did not expect to be stopped.
She was on public ground, filming from across the street.
Yet she was confronted by security guards and told she allegedly needed “clearance” before taking any video or photo of the government building.
This incident is more than a petty confrontation.
It is a brazen attempt by a government office to muzzle the press and, by extension, the people’s right to know.
Constitutional violation?
The 1987 Philippine Constitution is explicit. Article III, Section 4 of the Bill of Rights guarantees that “No law shall be passed abridging the freedom of speech, of expression, or of the press.”
Article XVI, Section 10 further declares that “The State shall provide the policy environment for the full development of Filipino capability and the emergence of communication structures suitable to the needs and aspirations of the nation.”
These clauses leave no room for arbitrary restrictions that block journalists from documenting matters of public concern, least of all from a public sidewalk.
DPWH Region 8’s so-called “clearance” requirement is not only legally dubious; it is an insult to democracy.
Public buildings are funded by taxpayers. Public officials are entrusted to serve the people. There is no justification for preventing citizens, especially journalists, from documenting a government office visible from a public space.
Suspicious timing
The timing is suspicious.
Eastern Visayas has long been plagued by substandard or incomplete flood control projects, many of which have been criticized by local communities as wasteful or poorly executed.
National audits have repeatedly flagged DPWH for questionable expenditures, while watchdog groups and legislators have exposed the persistence of “ghost projects” initiatives listed on paper but invisible on the ground.
When an agency with such a track record suddenly clamps down on media coverage, the connection is hard to ignore. By barring cameras, DPWH may well be protecting not its premises, but the paper trail of its failures.
Instead of opening itself to scrutiny, DPWH Region 8 has chosen secrecy. At a time when the region is reeling from quake damage, blackouts, and failing infrastructure, the public deserves answers about how billions in taxpayer money are being spent.
Instead, the agency is shutting its gates tighter, figuratively and literally, to those tasked with asking questions.
Press freedom is not a courtesy extended by the government; it is a constitutional guarantee.
When a government agency acts as if it can withhold permission to film what is plainly in view, it tramples not just on the rights of journalists, but on the rights of every Filipino who depends on a free press for information.
Secrecy
Some may argue this is about security. But security cannot be an all-purpose excuse for secrecy.
If government offices invoke “clearance” to stop photos from being taken outside their premises, then every public agency could bar coverage at will. Such unchecked power is the very tyranny the Constitution sought to prevent.
DPWH Region 8 owes the public an explanation, and more than that, a retraction of this unlawful practice. Silence only strengthens suspicion that the agency fears what the cameras might capture: half-finished dikes, vanishing budgets, or projects that exist only in paper reports.
In a democracy, the lens of the camera is not a threat. It is a mirror.
If DPWH Region 8 cannot stand to be seen, then perhaps the real problem lies not with the press, but with what the press might reveal.
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