THE group that organized presidential bet former Senator Ferdinand ‘Bongbong’ Marcos Jr's first face-to-face press conference since the start of the campaign period screened reporters and even barred several others from covering it in Cagayan de Oro on Tuesday afternoon.
The organizers drew flak among Cagayan de Oro’s more senior journalists who said they would have attended Marcos’ news conference at Mallberry Suites and asked the politician questions had they not been kept in the dark.
The press conference was attended by mostly relatively new reporters performing junior-level tasks for their news organizations.
It was a press conference by invitation only, and questions were known to organizers at least a day earlier.
John Michael Bustamante, a reporter for the local broadcaster Strong Radio, said he tried to get in but was refused entry because he wasn't on the organizers’ list.
Bustamante said he did not force the issue and decided to just wait outside the function room where the press conference was held.
Nicole Managbanag, a local coordinator for media of the Marcos campaign, said she sent out invitations to news organizations in Cagayan de Oro based on the recommendations of the capitol and her recollection.
Managbanag is familiar with the local media terrain ― she is a former newspaper reporter in Cagayan de Oro and once served as an information officer of the Misamis Oriental provincial government.
She said the invitations were sent to all local media outlets, a claim that Mindanao Gold Star Daily editor-in-chief Cong Corrales laughed off.
“There was no invitation whatsoever. We didn’t receive any,” Corrales said.
One of the newspaper’s correspondents, Shiela Mae Butlig, said she was able to attend the press conference “only by accident.”
Butlig said she wasn’t on the list, but she was given access by Managbanag herself at the eleventh hour when the Marcos group’s coordinator learned that she was covering the story about the campaign sortie in Cagayan de Oro.
Corrales said the press conference organizers created an environment that ensured that only questions acceptable to them were asked and that reporters ― particularly the more senior local journalists ― seen as critical were kept out.
Menzie Montes, the news coordinator of Radio Mindanao Network’s iFM, said she saw several reporters prevented from covering Marcos’ press conference.
“We were asked earlier to fill out a document online for clearance. They were strict about who got in, and double-checked using their list,” Montes said.
Montes and Nef Luczon, editor for the state-run Philippine News Agency in Northern Mindanao, also said organizers asked them what their questions to Marcos were a day before the press conference.
“Organizers claimed that this is the ‘first time’ Marcos Jr. holds a face-to-face press briefing/presscon since the campaign trail started. And talks about his platforms (questions have to be sent in advance),” Luczon’s Facebook post reads.
The reason for this, according to Managbanag, was to avoid redundancy in the questions.
She also said those invited were “intelligent enough not to ask questions that have been repeatedly asked, and answered before” by Marcos.
Managbanag said one of the reasons why organizers had to list those allowed to cover the press conference was because of security measures in the hotel which the Presidential Security Group implemented for Marcos’ running mate, presidential daughter, and Davao Mayor Sara Duterte.
Montes said she felt that the press conference should have been open to all given that Marcos is the presidential survey frontrunner.
But the press conference wasn’t meant for all journalists.
On April 22, four days before the press conference, Managbanag created the exclusive Messenger chat group called ‘BBM-Sara in CdeO’ where she added reporters of her choice and invited them to the “press conference with BBM in the flesh.”
The group includes several reporters from neighboring Bukidnon and Lanao del Norte provinces. (Herbie Gomez)
