Banning or evicting reporters
Killing, harassing journalists
Banning or evicting reporters
Cebu Daily News reporter Jose Santino Bunachita (left) and SunStar photographer Amper Campaña were driven out of City Hall on May 5. 2003 and Dec. 14, 2016, respectively.
1. When the city mayor banned a reporter and evicted a photographer
PACHICO A. SEARES
First published in SunStar, Dec. 16, 2016. Adapted to CJJ Sept. 24, 2026.
On May 7, 2003, Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña evicted from his office Sun.Star photographer Amper Campaña who was there to cover the courtesy call of a police official on the mayor.
Last Dec. 14, 2016 Tomas also banished from a press-con in his City Hall office “Cebu Daily News” reporter Jose Santino Bunachita.
In both occasions, the journalists weren’t being rude or anything that would prompt the host to kick out a guest (even if City Hall is not a public official’s home and is open to the public).
Trespassers?
The shaming was on the journalists. With many other people watching and listening:
— Tomas told Amper the mayor’s office was not a “public toilet” one could just walk into (“Sun.Star pa gyud, samot”), then ordered a guard to escort the photographer out of City Hall.
— The mayor told Bunachita: “Santi, Santi… Leave! You are banned from my office. Don’t come back.” Tomas refused to give specifics, saying later, a “Freeman” story said, he didn’t want to have a “running battle” with the reporter in media.
In Amper’s case, he wasn’t there to socialize, surely not to pee, but to take photos of a visiting police official. He was granted permission by Tomas’s staff, including his bodyguard. Bunachita was also no trespasser. He was with the City Hall press corps. And both could’ve been quietly sent away if they could not be given early notice.
Specifics
Giving specifics on the ban is important as it would enlighten the reporter concerned and his editor on whether they erred and how. As it was, the media outlet would be left guessing as to what prompted the drastic move. And other reporters needed to know if their colleague was not being bullied.
Minus the details from the mayor, one wouldn’t know if Amper was booted because of bad photos he took of Tomas, or Bunachita was sent out for inaccurate reports. And their papers wouldn’t know if it was the photographer’s or reporter’s fault or the editor’s. Many news sources don’t know who writes the head or caption of what changes take place after the material is submitted to editors.
Besides, the news source’s office can call up the editor or publisher to correct any any mis-reporting. That way, media managers can find out what went wrong and help avoid a repetition.
Can they do it?
But can the mayor or any other public official ban a reporter or any other journalist from a government office?
As chief of office, the mayor controls the flow of people into his place of work: who can get in or must get out.
In banning Bunachita though, Tomas took the risk of being criticized that (1) he couldn’t stand adverse news coverage; or (2) he wanted to discourage unfavorable publicity by using the ban as a club to cow reporters into submission.
The ban is considered by media watch groups as one of many tactics of public officials to try to manipulate journalists. Along with: leaking stories to favored reporters or media outlets, refusing to talk with reporters whose stories they find offensive, or even ridiculing at press-cons reporters’ published stories.
(Donald Trump didn’t just blacklist media outfits he found “unfair,” he would insult reporters in public rallies and would sic an angry crowd on them. He was a candidate then but that should give U.S. media some idea about what would happen if he’d continue to be mean once he’d assume office.)
Won’t sue
A media outlet whose City Hall reporter has been banished is highly unlikely to sue the public official responsible.
Not if the media group can still have ways to cover the said official, such as sending a replacement reporter or getting the story from a reporters’ pool and other sources. Tomas banned Sun.Star reporters in 2002 but soon relaxed his ban to allow a Sun.Star tape-recorder into the room. Perhaps finding that silly, he later allowed a reporter to go with the gadget.
The lawsuit may prosper here, as it does in the U.S., if the ban is total and there’s no alternative means to gather news. Right to public information is crucial to the media as part of free speech and as an industry. 
The Amper Campaña incident is included in the list of reported harassments under the CJJ section/category “Killing Journalists.” (https://cebujournalism.ph/article-page/killing-harassing-journalists)
2 . CDN “disappointed,” wanted to know why then mayor Tomas Osmeña banned its reporter
From Dec. 14, 2016 editorial of then Cebu Daily News. Adapted to CJJ Sept. 24, 2026.
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.