This story
was taken from Bulatlat, the Philippines's alternative weekly
newsmagazine (www.bulatlat.com, www.bulatlat.net, www.bulatlat.org).
Vol. VI, No. 16, May 28-June 3, 2006
Journalists’ Group Calls on Colleagues to Fight Back
Fight back! This was the call of the group National Union of Journalists of the
Philippines (NUJP), one of the country’s biggest groups of journalists, as it
lamented government’s “lameduck” effort to curb the killings of journalists.
BY ARTEMIO A. DUMLAO
Bulatlat
Fight back!
This was the call of the group National Union of Journalists of the Philippines
(NUJP), one of the country’s biggest groups of journalists, as it lamented
government’s “lameduck” effort to curb the killings of journalists.
“Today, we say enough is enough. We have condemned enough. We have issued
statements enough. We have marched in the streets and called government's
attention enough,” said Jose Torres Jr., director and spokesperson of the NUJP.
Calling journalists in the country to fight back by using the journalist
profession, pens, cameras and microphones as weapons, Torres said: “Let us cease
to be just observers and recorders to the death of democracy.”
Torres made the strongly-worded statement after Palawan broadcaster Fernando
"Dong" Batul was murdered Monday morning on his way to anchor his regular
Bastonero program on DYPR in Puerto Princesa. Batul’s killing came after
photojournalist Albert
Orsolino was gunned down in Caloocan City on May 16 and San Pablo City (Laguna)
broadcaster Iring Maranan was mauled just hours after by Laguna Councilor
Edgardo Adajar in full view of 100 people, including other journalists.
“It is clear that the survival of democracy now rests solely in our hands,”
Torres said, “as the death toll of Filipino journalists has already far
outstripped the 34 claimed by the 14-year Marcos dictatorship.”
“We no longer see how this administration can claim to preside over a society
that claims to be the freest in this part of the world,” he further said.
"When crimes against journalists remain unpunished, the future of a country is
endangered and organized crime or corruption becomes the main beneficiaries of
this impunity," the NUJP official said. He called on “the people, the public,
the audiences we serve, to stand with us. For the freedom of the press we
struggle to uphold is not ours alone but the logical extension of the people's
right to free expression and to know from which all other rights emanate.”
“For not only has this administration's inaction emboldened those who would
impose on us the ultimate form of censorship – death – it has actually attempted
to muzzle the independent Philippine press,” Torres added.
He went on to cite that even the Philippine National Police (PNP) has
acknowledged that, of the 79 killings of journalists since 1986, only five cases
have been resolved by the courts.
“And we stress that, while the killers in these cases may have been convicted,
not a single mastermind has ever been brought to justice,” Torres added. Not to
mention the fact that, in many cases, the killings may be traced to agents of
state security, he said.
What we are getting, Torres lamented, are “empty promises, inutile task forces,
and fatuous claims by the likes of National Security Adviser Norberto Gonzales
that ‘forces out to destabilize’ the government are behind our colleagues'
deaths and those of hundreds of activists.”
In its obsession with national security and its own survival, this
administration has failed to protect the lives and respect the rights of the
Filipino people, journalists included, and consequently failed to defend
democracy, he claimed. “We reject and condemn such facile attempts to trivialize
our colleagues' deaths and make them another pawn in the political games this
government plays,” he said. Bulatlat
© 2006 Bulatlat ■ Alipato Publications
Permission is granted to reprint or redistribute this article, provided its author/s and Bulatlat are properly credited and notified.