Judith Miller and Juliet Labog Javellana

Ya know, this kinda reminds me of judith miller's case. she went to jail to for protecting a source.

the difference between juliet's case and judith is this:

Judith Miller went to jail for trying to protect the identity of the source who leaked the name of a covert CIA agent (thus jeopardizing her safety and her career) just to get back at her husband ambassador joseph wilson–-who wrote a scathing article in the new york times back in 2003 condemning the bush administration for twisting the intelligence information in order to justify going to war with iraq.

yung sa kaso naman ni Juliet, Joker's upset that Juliet wrote a front page article exposing joker's role in helping the administration cover up a criminal activity and gagging Neri. And now joker wants to get even with the 4 sources by forcing Juliet to name names.

That's the long and short of it.

From the Inquirer Editorial:

TWO SENATORS, WANTING TO GET TO THE bottom of the same issue, tackled it in different ways. The younger, Panfilo Lacson, titled his resolution (PS Res. No. 164) “Directing The Proper Committee/s of The Senate To Investigate The September 26, 2007 ‘Executive Session’ Of The Senators Where An Uninvited Guest Allegedly Hindered The Testimony Of A Witness And The Subsequent Publication Of What Supposedly Transpired In The Said Session, With The End In View Of Amending And Strengthening The Rules Of The Senate On Executive Session.” Only one of its eight “whereas” clauses mentioned the media—and only generically, as “newspaper reports.”

The elder, Joker Arroyo, titled his resolution (PS Res. No. 165), more compactly: “Resolution Directing The Appropriate Committee To Look Into The Violation of Rule XLVII And/Or Other Rules Of The Rules Of The Senate On Executive Sessions During The September 26, 2007 Proceedings.” Eleven out of its 13 “whereas” clauses referred to an Inquirer article, its writer and its editors, upon whom he poured out his frustrations in a piece he wrote and this paper published (unedited and in full, as he demanded) Saturday.

So, who among the two senators is after the interests of the Senate as an institution? Who is going hammer and tongs after this paper, while studiously ignoring the real issue at hand?

In a heated moment of interpellation, Senator Arroyo dismissed Senator Lacson with the contemptuous remark, “We are not policemen here.” But this is an issue that calls not for the obfuscations of a seasoned lawyer, but for the simple sleuthing of a rookie cop. What was the purpose of the executive session? To hear testimony that Romulo Neri was unwilling to divulge in public. What was alleged to have transpired in that executive session? Nothing. Then why all the fuss if nothing happened?

Because Senator Arroyo takes exception to the allegations that: Neri did not provide any testimony, going only as far as supposedly dangling the tantalizing possibility that what he knew might bring down the government; and that Neri would not, did not, could not, proceed further because a member of the Cabinet materialized in the so-called executive session.

Senator Arroyo also takes violent exception to his having been reported as the instrument by which the Arroyo administration infiltrated the executive session, thus rendering its purpose impossible. To which, a fellow senator reasonably, in effect, asks: If there was no confession, could there be a claim to the seal of the confessional?
.....

The purpose of executive sessions or any kind of official secrecy is to maintain the security of the state, the inviolability of legitimate official communications, but never, ever, under any circumstances, to obstruct justice or to hide official wrongdoing.

So, Joker’s slogan comes back to haunt him: Kung bad ka, lagot ka.

Read the whole thing.