Mindanaotoday.com | Oro press joins call: PTFoMS must stay
By: Uriel Quilinguing
CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY – One of the country’s oldest press organizations has joined other media groups in calling on President-elect Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to keep the Presidential Task Force on Media Security (PTFoMS) under his administration.
Cagayan de Oro Press Club (COPC) president Frank Mendez on Monday, June 6, said the COPC Board has passed a resolution, supporting the National Press Club (NPC) of the Philippines which has earlier appealed to the incoming President that PTFoMS must go on.
Mendez said the COPC, which was formed 70 years ago, recognizes the intention of the Office of the President in PTFoMS creation – that justice would be served for journalists killed through inter-agency collaboration and to ensure that cases filed by survivors of assassination attempts would prosper.
Cagayan de Oro and the rest of Northern Mindanao have not posted a shooting incident involving journalists since Nov. 29, 2013, when a broadcast commentator based in Maramag, Bukidnon was shot dead while in Valencia City.
Prior to 2013, three other broadcast commentators were victims of shooting incidents in Northern Mindanao; two in Cagayan de Oro and one in Iligan – all sustained gunshot wounds, in critical conditions, and survived.
Meanwhile, the Publishers’ Association of the Philippines Inc. (PAPI) has expressed its desire for the continuation of what the PTFoMS has been doing for more than five years now.
PAPI with NPCP have proposed for the creation of a Presidential Commission for Media Security (PCOMS) from the existing PTFoMS.
PTFoMS was created by virtue of Administrative Order No. 1 which outgoing President Rodrigo Duterte issued Oct. 11, 2016 which was anchored on Executive Order No. 2 (July 23, 2016) which set the administration’s policies on full disclosure and transparency within the executive branch.
Originally labelled as PTF on Violence Against Media Workers, the Office of the President-created group was chaired by the Department of Justice with the Presidential Communications Operations Office (PCOO) as co-chairperson.
PTFoMS members include the Department of Interior and Local Government, Department of National Defense, National Bureau of Investigation, Philippine National Police, Armed Forces of the Philippines, the Office of the Solicitor General, and the Presidential Human Rights Committee.
Representatives of the Commission on Human Rights and the Office of the Ombudsman also sit in the PTFoMS as observers.
Day-to-day operations is administered by PCOO Undersecretary Joel M. Sy Egco, who also sits as PTFoMS executive director.
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