Philippines: It’s Not Yet Over, Newsbreak Tells Mike Arroyo

Statement on the First Gentleman?s plan to drop the libel suits versus journalists, including two he filed against Newsbreak:

We?re glad that Mr. Jose Miguel ?Mike? Arroyo has seen the light. He should never have filed these libel cases in the first place.

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In Philippines, president?s husband withdraws 46 libel suits

New York ?Jose Miguel Arroyo, husband of Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, has withdrawn 46 criminal libel suits he had filed against 11 journalists. The Committee to Protect Journalists welcomed today?s news but said the suits should never have been brought.

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Surveillance, abductions: Bayan bucks emerging police state in Philippines

The umbrella group Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan) was not the least surprised that the phone of former president Corazon Aquino was bugged.

?We are not surprised. Killings, abductions, surveillance; these are clear signs that we are now living in a police state. All our movements are being watched by a paranoid and unstable government. Just imagine how things will be when the anti-terror law is implemented in July,? said Bayan secretary general Renato M. Reyes, Jr.

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Philippines’s First Gentleman drops all defamation suits against journalists

Reporters Without Borders today welcomed the news that Mike Arroyo, the husband of President Gloria Arroyo, has decided to drop all law suits against the country’s journalists and publishers.

The worldwide press freedom organisation hailed the exemplary campaign waged by Philippines’ journalist organisations and called for press offences to be decriminalised.
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