Hong Kong journalists blacklisted by Philippines after questioning Aquino at Apec summit
Nine journalists who questioned president Benigno Aquino apparently blacklisted by agency, but presidential media office denies it
A ban may have been imposed on nine Hong Kong journalists that would block them from entering the Philippines to report on next year's Apec summit.
The nine were said to have "heckled" the country's president at last year's meeting by asking questions about the 2010 Manila bus hostage tragedy, a Philippine government letter showed.
Six reporters from Now TV, two from Commercial Radio and another from RTHK were "blacklisted", according to the letter, apparently issued by the country's National Intelligence Coordinating Agency to its Bureau of Immigration.
But the presidential media office denied there was a ban.
"According to Bureau of Immigration Commissioner Siegfred Mison, there is no such 'blacklist' of journalists who are denied entry to the Philippines on account of their actions during the Apec summit in Bali, Indonesia, [in October] last year," Herminio Coloma, head of the Presidential Communications Operations Office, said yesterday.
One of the journalists, Now TV cameraman Eric Lee Kwok-keung, came to know of the alleged ban, purportedly in force since May, when he was turned away at Manila airport on Thursday and had to return to Hong Kong.
