News website Inquirer.net has temporarily take down the articles written about Senate President Vicente “Tito” Sotto III and his alleged involvement in the rape of the late actress Pepsi Paloma.
Last month, US-based columnist Rodel Rodis shared of Facebook the letter that Sotto sent to Inquirer.net asking the media company to take down its articles titled, “The Rape of Pepsi Paloma”, “Was Pepsi Paloma Murdered?”, and “Tito Sotto Denies Whitewashing Pepsi Paloma Rape Case”.
The three articles talk about Paloma’s controversial death in 1985 and the multiple speculations behind it.
Paloma’s death continues to be one of the greatest “mystery” in Philippine show business. Many reports confirmed that Paloma took her own life on May 31, 1985. However, there are also claims, saying that the actress-dancer was allegedly drugged and raped three years before her death.
The senate president earlier requested that the mentioned articles should be removed from the website as they proliferate fake news and hurt his reputation.
After sending his request which was dated May 29, 2018, only a few days after he became Senate President, Sotto has received harsh criticisms from netizens saying his request is a form of press oppression.
However, as of July 4, the three mentioned articles became inaccessible for online users.
Going to the page of the said articles will only show a message which reads, “The articles on the Pepsi Paloma case are currently under review and are temporarily unavailable.”
Meanwhile, the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP) were saddened by Inquirer.net’s decision to take down the articles from their website.
“July 4, 2018 will forever be remembered as one of the darkest days in the annals of Philippine journalism. It is the day when the online arm of the newspaper long regarded as one of the beacons of press freedom in the country caved in to the demands of a two-bit comedian turned Senate President.
“It is the day when Inquirer.net disowned its own editorial policies and standards—and its writers—by willingly taking down stories it had posted as far as four years ago that harp on Vicente Sotto III’s alleged role in the cover up of the rape of Pepsi Paloma.
“At a time when freedom of the press and of expression has come under the worst attacks since the Marcos regime, this humiliating self-censorship betrays not only the spirit in which the Inquirer was founded, it betrays a profession whose practitioners have fended and continue to fight off all attempts to muzzle it even if it has cost our ranks 185 lives since 1986,” NUJP said in a statement.
NUJP has previously condemned Sotto for his “brazen attempt to suppress freedom of the press and of expression.”
Photo credits: Esquire Magazine, ABS-CBN
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