TACLOBAN CITY — Media practitioners in Eastern Visayas are up in arms against the arrest of an Ormoc-based journalist due to her failure to attend court hearings as a witness of a drug buy-bust operation of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA).

Josie Serseña, a radio broadcaster and reporter of weekly newspaper Eastern Visayas Mail, was arrested early morning last 5 July at her house in Barangay Kagao-han, Ormoc City. She was released early evening of the same day after her publisher posted her bail.

Her arrest was allegedly based on a bench warrant issued by Judge Mario Quinit, the presiding judge of the Regional Trial Court Branch 12 in Ormoc City, who is handling a drug case that Serseña has testified. The court issued bench warrant in response to the motion filed by prosecutor Erwin Fabriga.

Serseña said she was requested by the PDEA to be its witness of a buy-bust in Barangay Sto. Rosario, Matag-ob town sometime in April 2022. It is a practice of PDEA and Philippine National Police to bring a media practitioner to act as witness in their anti-drug operation, a practice that media organizations have long been protesting.

Serseña said she did not receive a court summon to appear in its hearing last 27 June 2024 and neither the PDEA lawyer informed her about it. She added that court personnel later informed her that the summon was sent out last 13 June.