Subictimes.com publisher harassed, Office burglarized

www.subictimes.com strongly condemned the harassment of its  publisher and chief photographer after he was verbally abused and forcibly escorted out of the political meeting of the Gordon Straight Ticket (GST) in Barangay Barretto Monday evening.

A day after David Bayarong was harassed, our office, which also serves as his home, was burglarized.

The thieves took his EOS 1D Mark ll and EOS 400-D cameras with all his lens 28-135mm, 50mm f1.4, 100mm f2, 70-200mm L series canon, 2 flash his camera bag, all his USB and all his memory card worth an estimated P400,000.

A day before the burglary, Bayarong went to the political meeting of the Gordon Straight Ticket in Barangay Barretto to take pictures of their meeting.

David arrived at around 9PM and took pictures of the rally while Zambales Vice Governor Anne Gordon who is running for a seat in congress was delivering her speech and Mayor Bong Gordon was seated in front.

Mayor Jame Gordon Jr., who seeking re-election, stood up and approached David Bayarong and asked him “sino ka at bakit ka kumukuha ng picture dito?”

David Bayarong  explained that he was covering the event for Subictimes.com and for his other news outfits for a special photo series regarding the local campaign of both political camps.

Aside from being the publisher of Subitimes.com, David Bayarong is also a photo correspondent of Sunstar Pampanga, Manila Standard Today and Remate Tonight.

According to David, Mayor Gordon then left and talked to councilor Edwin Piano who immediately approached him.

“Piano came up to me after his talk with Mayor Gordon and we exchanged greetings. According to Piano, the mayor was saying to him that the website (www.subictimes.com) was a site of former Zambales Gov. Vic Magsaysay (Mayor Gordon’s rival for mayoralty post) and that they were monitoring it,” Bayarong added.

“Did they (Gordon’s) think we were bias because of the ads in the website? We sent them proposal but they never replied,” Anthony Bayarong, editor in Chief of www.subictimes.com said.

Subitimes.com was supposed to come out with a photo feature to highlight the local campaign in the city.

“Nilapitan ako nung isang lalaki at tinanong ako ‘tapos ka na ba?’ Sabi ok lang po ako pero pilit nya ako tinatanong ng ‘ok ka naba?’ over and over. Tapos finally he told me na umalis ka na at baka mabugbog ka rito,” Bayarong said.

Bayarong added that when he was making his way out of the meeting the man kept saying loudly “ang kapal naman ng mukha mo at ang tapang mo pumunta dito mag isa. Kung gusto mo mag cover dun ka mag cover sa kabila,” referring to the Team Magsaysay headed by former Zambales Governor Vicente Magsaysay.

David was assigned to cover the Gordon ticket while Anthony (his older brother) was assigned to Team Magsaysay and Team Bacay.

“I did not expect that they would harass my brother, he has been covering city hall and Mayor Gordon since he came home from the United Kingdom a year ago and I especially did not expect that our house would be burglarized. We have been living in that house since I was 6 months, we never lost anything. Mababait ang mga kapitbahay namin.” the older Bayarong said.

“What made me think about the incident was after David verified what the thieves took. He discovered his Ipod Nano, 2 cellphones (a Nokia N72 and Sony Ericson p990i) and his wallet with some cash were still in the sala were his camera and gears were also located before it went missing,” the older Bayarong added.

Because of the incident, the subucitimes.com will no longer cover the Gordon Straight Ticket during their last stages of campaign.

“We promised to bring fair and balanced news to our readers during this campaign period. But what happened to David, in a span of 48 hours, cannot be taken lightly. We will no longer cover GST’s campaign because the safety of our staff, which includes David, is a priority. We understand that the tense political situation in the city, but that is not excuse to harass anyone especially the media,” the older Bayarong added. 

Note: www.subictimes.com, Anthony and David Bayarong would like to thank Mark Anthony Orpiano and Olongapo City Councilor Edwin Piano for assisting David during the incident in Barangay Barretto.