PCIJ Blog issued with a Temporary Restraining Order
Saturday
Nov 5, 2005
Inside PCIJ, the weblog of the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism, has been issued a temporary restraining order (the all-powerful TRO) by the Quezon City Regional Trial Court.
The TRO basically ordered PCIJ to remove …
a post, dated August 12, 2005, describing the background and
credentials of Jonathan Tiongco, the audio expert presented the same
day by Environment Secretary Michael Defensor in order to question the authenticity of the ‘Hello Garci’ recording … and … banned the PCIJ, for the 20-day duration of the TRO, from ‘broadcasting, publishing or posting or causing to broadcast, publish,
or post articles and statements similar and related to, or connected
and in conjunction with’ the blog post.
…
This is the first legal action, and the first TRO, issued against a blog in the Philippines.
PCIJ plans to tackle the issue at the Supreme Court level, and I’m pretty sure the SC will junk the ruling. But with the legal system in this country, I’d think it would have been better to wait 20 days and let the TRO lapse, and then blog about the issue anew!
A Google Cache of the original article can be read here.
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