Pointblank
ICHPC vs. Atty. Gil
Radio reports say that until now Mayor Jerry P. Treñas has yet to have a serious talk with City Legal Officer Atty. Edgar Gil with regard to the incident that transpired between the latter and some members of the Iloilo City Hall Press Corps (ICHPC). It has been two weeks since Atty. Gil allegedly shoved the camera of photojournalist Arnold Almacen of the Visayan Daily Headlines and Philippine Daily Inquirer. Worse, reporters Bert Ladera of RMN-dyRI and Rhonson Hofileña of Aksyon Radyo claimed that they heard Gil uttered the word "gago" against Almacen. The incident prompted ICHPC headed by Radyo ng Bayan's Lucy Montealto to pass a resolution calling on Gil to issue a public apology for his actuations against the photojournalist.
Up to this writing Atty. Gil did not heed ICHPC's call. He also seem to avoid members of ICHPC trying to look for him the past few days.
So far, only Mayor Treñas was able to talk to Gil after the latter's vacation from Boracay albeit only briefly because, as the mayor said, during the time he was not feeling well. According to Treñas, Atty Gil strongly denied that he uttered offensive words against Almacen. Well, what do we expect? Anyway, both Ladera and Hofileña are standing to their word that they heard Gil uttering such word.
Last Monday I've heard Hofileña's report over Aksyon Radyo that he followed up with Mayor Treñas the status of the ICHPC resolution against Gil. Unfortunately, the mayor answered that still he was not able to talk to Gil because he was very busy because of the floods that occurred in the districts of Jaro and Lapaz districts recently. Well, we understand the mayor although we are very aware that Gil's office is just close to that of Mayor Treñas's.
We don't know what will happen next but at the rate things are going I believe Mayor Treñas and Atty. Gil are just buying time waiting for the issue to die down. However, if Mayor Treñas wants the issue settled in order that the atmosphere between the CLO and the ICHPC turns back to normalcy, he could initiate a dialog between Gil and the ICHPC including Almacen. With that, both parties could clear things out and hopefully would lead to better understanding so a similar incident would not happen in the future.
On the issue of whether Atty. Gil was right in shoving Almacen's camera saying the latter has to ask his permission first before taking his picture, definitely NOT! Atty. Gil must have forgotten that he is a public official, a City Legal Officer at that. Reporters were doing ambush interview with him that time as he rushes out of his office. Any photojournalist, for sure, would find it a good material considering that Gil was a subject of a controversial issue that time. What if the interview was not about the alleged tampered meter caught by Peco at his "old" house but about his accomplishments or other positive issues? We don't think he would shove Almacen's camera. Why did I say that? Because I myself had taken Gil's picture while I was interviewing him before and he did not bother to stop me. Also, we had a lot of file photos of Gil here in our library taken by our photojournalist A. Chris Fernandez and I did not remember our photojournalist saying that he was told by Gil to ask his permission first before taking his picture.
We hope Mayor Treñas could help settle this issue instead of defending the unacceptable acts of one of his men just like what happened before to a city hall employee also caught tapping electricity from the streetlight whom the mayor defended to the end.