AS SEEN ON TV
Media Killing Nation
November 23, 2009 is now said to be the darkest day in Philippine Journalism. More than a dozen journalists were brutally killed along with a number of men and women supporters accompanying Genalyn Tiamzon-Mangudadatu in Maguindanao province where she filed Certificates of Candidacy in Maguindanao. Her husband Esmael Mangudadatu is running for Maguindanao governor against political kingpin and incumbent administration governor Andal Ampatuan.
Along a deserted highway the group was flagged by armed men and subsequently killed in the most savage of ways. Many of the women journalists were also allegedly raped before they were killed. There are unconfirmed accounts that some of the victims were run over by vehicles to finish them off, while a pre-dug grave site was waiting for the unceremonial burial bodies.
The killings sent shockwaves of disbelief, grief and rage in the media community in the Philippines, as various media organizations have joined civil society in condemning the latest wholesale killing of
journalists.
The mediamen slaughter in Maguindanao only amplifies a nasty truth that press freedom is continuously violated in a country like the Philippines which Belgium-based International News Safety Institute (INSI) describes as the “deadliest nation on earth for news media”.
INSI Director Rodney Pinder said, “This is a horrific event for all in the world news community, but it goes beyond an attack on journalism and press freedom — it is an appalling assault on democracy itself”
Global news media group Reporters Without Borders on the other hand said, “Never in the history of journalism have the news media suffered a heavy loss of life in one day.”
Before the Maguindanao massacre the Philippines was already threading on thin ice as it’s government is constantly chided by international human rights groups for the unabated media killings in the country. Along Iraq, Russia and Colombia, the Philippines shamelessly figured 4th among notorious nations where journalists are being killed for mere doing their jobs. The latest massacre of about a dozen journalists in Maguindanao may just catapult the Philippines to the top spot on a list of countries where journalists must make themselves scarce.
From 1996 to 2008, INSI records show 76 journalists have been killed in the Philippines already. In 2009 alone (the year barely over) INSI has already recorded 4 deaths, excluding this week’s gruesome killings in Maguindanao.
The National Union of Journalists in the Philippines on the other hand records 104 journalist killings since 1986, 67 of which happened during the time of President Gloria Arroyo. Many of these journalists were silenced because of the controversial stories they were pursuing, mostly exposes of corrupt government officials or offices.
Each time a media practitioner is killed human rights groups and media communities look to the government for solutions and the much desired action. Behind every condemnation of journalist killings is an appeal to government authorities to do what it can in bringing perpetrators to justice.
Sadly, authorities do not even come close to solving the killings in the past while harassment and violence continue to haunt journalists especially in critical areas and during crucial political times such as elections. Without a major arrest of perpetrators and in the absence of prosecution not just of hired guns but of masterminds, killing media practitioners just becomes more ingrained in our culture.
Reporters Without Borders said “We have often condemned the culture of impunity and violence in the Philippines, especially Mindanao. This time, the frenzied violence of thugs working for corrupt politicians has resulted in an incomprehensible bloodbath. We call for a strong reaction from the local and national authorities.”
I share the view of senior media analysts in Mindanao that the carnage in Maguindanao is an omen of things to come. The absence of arrests and prosecution will only encourage others to perpetrate crimes against mediamen in particular. We can expect the attacks on journalists to be more daring, more violently senseless in the future.
It is not enough that the government condemns to the highest degree, the senseless killing of journalists in this country. We’re way past condemnations for press release purposes. The government must do all
in its power to serve justice, if only to show that in the Philippines, freedom of expression is not a culturally and habitually transgressed human right.
