We are disappointed that Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña decided to “ban” from his office the City Hall reporter of Cebu Daily News, Jose Santino Bunachita, for no apparent reason other than saying “he (Santino) knows why.”
We have to know why. But Mayor Osmeña could not pinpoint a particular story when Santino has been unfair in his coverages of both the mayor and his office.
Cebu Daily News strives to be fair to everyone and, we believe, it shows in our stories involving the affairs of City Hall that were written not just by Santino but also by the other reporters of CDN who were previously and currently assigned to the City Hall beat.
Santino has in fact been bending over backward in his coverage of the Mayor’s Office, conscious that the mayor has apparently been saying he didn’t like him.
Even as that kind of “dislike” baffled us, we chose to quietly and internally address the matter by ensuring that our coverages remain fair, and making sure as well that no sensitive story involving the mayor will come out in CDN without the mayor’s side, no matter how many times he would rebuff or ignore our requests for a comment.
For a reporter who is acknowledged within and out of CDN as one of its best, we cannot allow the good mayor to blemish the good name of Santino who only strives to live up to the ethical and journalistic standards set by Cebu Daily News, a community newspaper that has been serving the Cebuanos for the past 18 years under the Inquirer Group.
We do not want to pick a fight with the mayor but in this case, however, we refuse to be bullied.
We will continue to cover the affairs of the mayor’s office in the most fair, factual, accurate and complete way we can. We owe it to our readers who trust us to deliver the fairest and most accurate stories that come out of the City Hall.
We will not tolerate unfounded accusations, much more from the mayor who owes his position to the people of Cebu City; the same public who deserves to know what is happening in the city unfiltered by the mayor’s own biases and interests./END
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