Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, July 22) — Independent news outlet Bulatlat on Friday asked a Quezon City court to reconsider its plea for a temporary restraining order (TRO) against a memorandum blocking access to its website.
In its motion for reconsideration, Bulatlat said the Quezon City Regional Trial Court Branch 306 should determine whether the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) memo is valid, instead of being confined to whether it can still access the news site.
On July 13, Judge Dolly Jose Bolante-Prado denied the petition for a TRO since members of the court were still able to open bulatlat.com, according to the media organization.
The judge said this shows “there is clearly no suppression of the constitutionally guaranteed right to free speech.” But Bulatlat argued otherwise.
It also pointed out that its number of unique web visitors has dropped by 43% since the memo was issued. It said this damage will continue if the implementation of the memorandum will not be restrained.
“The number of lost Bulatlat.com readers is rather critical and, with due respect, quite the opposite of this Honorable Court’s observation that the same is ‘of no moment,’ ‘irrelevant’ and a mere ‘inconvenience.’ It demonstrates that Defendants’ design to censor Bulatlat.com through the assailed Memorandum has succeeded to a significant extent,” the motion read.
NTC issued the order in June upon National Security Adviser Hermogenes Esperon’s request to prohibit access to websites that he said are linked to the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People’s Army-National Democratic Front (CPP-NPA-NDF). Bulatlat has maintained it is not affiliated with these groups.
