Erring Army official's apology to media asked

KIDAPAWAN CITY, Philippines (Philippine News Agency / Nov. 3, 2008) — Members of the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP) in Cotabato City have asked Army Col. John Oswald Bucu (earlier identified as Aswald Buco) of the 6th Infantry Division to apologize over local radio stations for ‘mistreating’ a broadcast journalist at the height of the Friday dawn fire that razed the storage facility of the Army’s 12th Field Support Service Unit at Camp Siongco.

Bucu is the commanding officer of the 6th Infantry Division's Headquarters Service Battalion. Bucu, according to a statement issued by NUJP Cotabato City, berated dxMS reporter Loreto Rosario for getting too close to the fire scene and called him an intruder.

Rosario is a reporter of Notre Dame Broadcasting Corporation and a member of the NUJP Cotabato City chapter.

“Surprisingly, though, Bucu allowed a crew of a local television outfit to position themselves at the scene and huddle with ranking officials of the 6th Infantry Division as the fire destroyed some P10 million worth of old ammunition stored inside the facility,” the statement said.

Bucu, according to NUJP, confiscated Rosario’s press identification card and his mobile phone and brought him to the office of 6th Infantry Division spokesman Col. Julieto Ando, where he continued to reprimand the radio reporter.

“I was reprimanded as if I was a terrorist who was caught doing something bad inside the camp,” Rosario told colleagues.

Ando has apologized for Bucu’s misbehavior over Catholic station dxMS here last Saturday, but the commander of the 6th Infantry Division, Lt. Gen. Raymundo Ferrer, and Bucu himself have both remained silent on the issue.

Bucu first hogged the airwaves when he branded as a “member” of the New People’s Army rebels the president of the NUJP chapter in Kidapawan City who is the program director of the Catholic station dxND in North Cotabato, during a gathering of reporters at the headquarters of the Army’s 602nd Brigade in Carmen, North Cotabato some two years ago. (PNA)