Veteran journalist launches controversial book in Cebu

CEBU, Philippines - To give Cebuanos a peek of what’s happening inside the Supreme Court, Newsbreak editor-in-chief Marites Vitug has launched her book “Shadow of Doubt: Probing the Supreme Court” in Cebu.

Published by Newsbreak, the book was first launched last March 16 with 3,000 copies out in the book market. Controversial as it is, the publisher of the book added another 10,000 copies to be distributed in the different bookstores nationwide as the first copies had already been sold out.

The book tackles mainly about the work of the court which, as what Vitug said, in the “conventional literature is the least powerful branch of government because it has no hold over the purse and the sword.”

“Yet, what we experienced in the past months shows that the Court wields a quiet kind of power derived from its mystique, a certain aura of mystery which comes from its silence, its culture of secrecy,” Vitug said.

Vitug, who has earlier been charged with 13 counts of libel by Supreme Court Associate Justice Presbitero Velasco, Jr., for her online article, shared that she is convinced that “it is important to have written the book even if, as academics like to say, ‘it’s only Journalism.’”

Velasco alleged that Vitug tried to imply in one of her online articles that he violated provisions of the Code of Judicial Conduct so as to heighten the bid of his son Lord Allan who is a congressional candidate in the Province of Marinduque.

After the book has been published, Vitug shared that she had received different reactions. “Because this book is the first of its kind, I expect intense reactions: hate mail as well as show of support; applause as well as anger. Some will ascribe motive as to why I wrote the book, the timing of its release, and the positions I took,” she said.

Cebu City Integrated Bar of the Philippines (IBP) president Michael Yu said that he is glad that Vitug took the courage to reveal the inner workings of the Supreme Court. He said that IBP supports the book because they want the people to be aware on what is going on inside the highest court of the land.

Yu said there are efforts from the Supreme Court in stopping the publication of the book as “they don’t want this book to be a catalyst or to serve attacks or to further question the activities of the Supreme Court.”

Yu further said that people only know hearsays through the media that a certain case under a certain judge is being influenced, and that the book talks about these secret transactions. “There are some inner workings in there. We have to read the book and know more about it,” he said. – THE FREEMAN