Health Hazard
By Ding I. Generoso
Most journalists are used to the hazards of their trade. There are those who risk life and limb to bring stories of war, terrorism, and crime to our living rooms and breakfast tables. Some encounter harassment in the beats they cover, especially those in the political field. Some get threats from powerful individuals who probably didn't want their stories written about, especially if they concern graft and corruption. Some have to contend with undue pressure-political, financial, or whatever.
One would not think that a journalist could get harassed and bullied covering a medical convention. After all, there is nothing so controversial or sensitive in discussion of scientific matters that could get a journalist into trouble. Covering a medical convention isn't like uncovering a fund anomaly at the Department of Health or exposing hospital malpractice or unmasking a drug company's unfair trade practices. Those things don't get taken up in conventions. They are normally swept under the rug, and a journalist would need to have a more sensitive nose for news than usual to be able to detect them.
But harassed and bullied was our photographer, Boaner Medina, December 10 last year at the Philippine Society of Anesthesiologists (PSA) annual convention at the supposed to be prestigious EDSA Shangri-La Hotel. Worse, the bullying and harassment did not come from the organizers of the conference who had invited us to cover the event. Rather it was perpetrated by over-eager and power-obsessed security personnel of EDSA Shangri-La Hotel-repeat, EDSA Shangri-La Hotel-who felt that in the performance of their supposed duty to prevent a "terrorist attack" on the hotel, they could themselves terrorize hotel guests Gestapo-like.
Out photographer and reporter were both given permission by the PSA secretariat to enter the ballroom where Senator Manuel Villar was to deliver the keynote address. Normally, a press ID bearing our publication name suffices for identification. But a hotel security guard stopped Boaner and asked him to get a convention ID. The secretariat issued him an ID with the word "PRESS" written on it.
While waiting for Villar to deliver his speech, Boaner was accosted by a hotel security guard who ordered him out for not having a convention ID. Outside the ballroom, they met Karen, head of the secretariat, who advised the guard that Boaner was authorized inside the ballroom. As the secretariat appeared to have run out of IDs with the convention logo, Karen offered her ID instead so that Boaner could get back inside the ballroom. But the stubborn guard completely brushed her aside and instead took Boaner to the hotel security office. There the security people emptied his camera bag and scrutinized every item they found, including his Bible and passport, questioning him even why his passport did not have a reentry stamp (it was none of their business anyway, and they were plainly stupid not to see it) and what he did in Cebu (they found a used airline ticket). The security chief (or at least someone who acted like one) called him
tarantado and gago, (for attempting to shoot a picture while they emptied his bag on the table) and shouted other invectives at him, stopping short of accusing him of alleged thefts that had gone on in the hotel (they so admitted it, indicating how incompetent they had been).
To cut the story short, it was only after I called the hotel security office and spoke to someone whose name sounded like Balasubas and said he was the chief, that Boaner was released. But not after they had forced him to sign a document that said he went to the security office voluntarily and they did not harass him. Mind you, they had the form prepared like it was routine for them to haul hotel guests to the security office.
Unfortunately, by the time they set Boaner free, Villar had already finished his speech so he missed the important part of the convention.
But more unfortunately, the EDSA-Shangri-La seems to be a favorite convention venue among medical societies. Which should not be if this is the kind of treatment that hotel personnel give their guests.
As for us, we would not mind not covering another medical convention at the EDSA Shangri-La Hotel. And certainly this is the last time that the name EDSA Shangri-La Hotel would appear in this publication's pages. In fact, we would not mind at all if the EDSA Shangri-La Hotel were to close shop. With such kind of management tolerating such behavior of employees, it won't be a big loss to this country.
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