Philippine Government May Be Using Zeitlin As a Scapegoat

An informed American source here said today that the Philippine government may be using Arnold Zeitlin, the Associated Press Bureau Chief in Manila; as a scapegoat to convince Arab diplomats that it is not mistreating the country’s Moslems. Zeitlin; who is Jewish, was blamed by the Philippine government last week for a setback in its relations with Arab oil countries for the dispatches he wrote last month on the fighting between Moslem rebels and the Filipino government troops. The American source noted that the Middle East provides 80 percent of oil used in the Philippines.

Primitivo Mijares, chairman of the Philippines Media Advisory Council, a group set up last May by President Ferdinand E. Marcos to license and control the press, said that if the Philippines were deprived of oil supplies or if gasoline prices rose, it would be “thanks to Mr. Zeitlin.” The Council. in a letter last.week to the newsman, accused him of malice and warned native employes of the AP in Manila that they also would be held “liable” for Zeitlin’s reports. Zeitlin is the only foreign national in a news agency in Manila.

Mijares, who is also a correspondent for the Manila Daily Express, accused Zeitlin of trying to “alienate the Philippine government and the people from the Arab world.” In reporting the Council’s action demanding that Zeitlin appear for a hearing before it last Thursday, the Express said that the journalist had “pronounced pro-Israel sympathies.” Zeitlin refused a summons to appear at the hearing. He wrote the Council stating that the government had assured foreign correspondents that their reports sent abroad would not be censored and that Philippine Foreign Secretary Carlos Romulo himself had assured AP headquarters in New York that foreign journalists would not be placed under Council control.

CASE BEING TREATED WITH DELICACY

Romulo sent a-letter on Feb. 20 to the Foreign Ministers of Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait describing Zeitlin as “suspected of being a Jewish journalist” and claimed that his dispatches describing the fighting were false. Informed U.S. sources in Washington said they could not believe Romulo, now almost 80 years old, had actually drafted the accusation which was carried in a press release issued by the Philippine Consulate General in Hong Kong.

The Philippine Embassy’s press counsellor in Washington, Abelardo L. Valencia, said the case is “not something we are particularly interested in here,” but noted that it is “a little odd” that his government’s announcement was made in Hong Kong. He said “no one asked me about it here” until the Jewish Telegraphic Agency phoned him. The case is being official treated here by American and Philippine officials with much delicacy.

The Philippines has been shaken by numerous outbursts of violence by workers, peasants and radical students protesting against rampant inflation, corruption, bureaucratic inefficiency and a per capita income of about $200 a year for about 75 percent of the total population of some 38 million. About five percent of the population are Moslems. There are some 500 Jews in the country.