This story
was taken from Bulatlat, the Philippines's alternative weekly
newsmagazine (www.bulatlat.com, www.bulatlat.net, www.bulatlat.org).
Vol. V, No. 22, July 10-16, 2005
Negros Newsman Gets
Death Threats via SMS
Journalists consider the short
message service (SMS) feature of mobile phones as an effective tool to
communicate with colleagues and their sources. But the experience of a Negros
Occidental-based journalist shows that SMS can also be used to send death
threats.
BY ARTEMIO A. DUMLAO Journalists are again under
siege. A Negros Occidental-based journalist received death threats through short
message service (SMS or “text”) messages days before a broadcaster was shot dead
in Cotabato last July 3. The National Union of
Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP) this week revealed unidentified persons
sent death threats via text messages last week to Jaime Espina, a contributor of
abs-cbnnews.com. He used to work as Bacolod reporter of the defunct newspaper
Today and was one of the officers who resigned from the Negros Press Club (NPC)
when the latter accepted First Gentleman Mike Arroyo as a member. Espina’s report to the NUJP
said the threats came immediately after his interview with Aksyon Radyo (Action
Radio) on the killings of journalists and activists. In this interview, Espina
narrated his conversation with Col. Jogy Leo Fojas of the 303rd Infantry Brigade
stationed in Negros Occidental. On the issue of rising human rights violations,
he quoted Fojas as saying, "Pag may masagasaan, pasensyahan na lang (If
someone gets hurt, he or she should just bear it.).” That same night, Espina
said, he received twice a text message from a mobile phone with the number
(0919) 660-1594 that said: "ngyn gva aq ang sndalo mo (Tonight, I am
your soldier.).” The journalist reportedly
ignored the first message but two minutes later, the sender sent a more
threatening message that read, "mg ingat k jn lng aq s pligd (You be
careful, I am just near you)." Espina texted back, to
which the other party replied, “gago adik aq, als2 ka mg hnty k." (Idiot,
I am an addict. You prepare, you wait for me.) The sender later sent this
message, “tignn ntin hnty p2tyin q kyng mg p2milya (Let's see, you wait,
I will kill you and your family.).” The sender told Espina that
he and his friends would just look for "bato" (colloquial term for shabu,
an illegal drug). Afterwards, he claimed that they would come around midnight to
kill Espina’s family and that Espina would just have to write about it. "I don't really know what
to make of this yet, although it does seem whoever it was knew he was sending
messages to a journalist, based on the last message,” Espina told the NUJP. NUJP already forwarded
Espina’s case to the Philippine National Police’s (PNP) Task Force Newsman which
was composed to look into the killings of journalists. Last July 3, Dodong
Morales, host of "Tingog sa Barangay"(Voice of the Village) program of Radio
Mindanao Network (RMN), was riding on his motorcycle when eight
motorcycle-riding gunmen shot him around 5:30 p.m. He was the sixth Filipino
journalist killed this year and the 69th since 1986 when democracy was
supposedly restored in the country. NUJP said Morales just
finished his radio show when gunmen peppered him with bullets. He reportedly
suffered 15 gunshot wounds and died before he was brought to the hospital.
Nordis / Bulatlat © 2004 Bulatlat
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Alipato Publications Permission is granted to reprint or redistribute this article, provided its author/s and Bulatlat are properly credited and notified.
Northern Dispatch
Posted by Bulatlat