Filipino Journalists Face Killings with Defiance

Journalists in 18 cities and provinces wore black and lighted candles last May 31 in a nationally coordinated activity dubbed “MIB (Media In Black)” that denounced the unsolved killings of journalists.

BY ACE ALEGRE
Bulatlat

Filipino journalists in black shirts ended their press work last May 31 lighting candles as a sign of both grief and outrage.

Gathering to remember and honor slain journalists, Jose Torres, spokesperson of the International Federation of Journalists’ affiliate National Union of Journalists in the Philippines (NUJP) said, “ours is not the silence of mourning or surrender, but of defiance.”

He explained that in the midst of the continuing killings and what he called “a culture of impunity” behind these, “we light our steadfast determination to fend off the darkness descending on our land.”

In Quezon City, Baguio, Legazpi, Bacolod, Angeles, Iloilo, Pagadian, Davao, Olongapo, Puerto Princesa, Tacloban, Lucena, Ormoc and other parts of the country, journalists bid goodbye to their fallen colleague Palawan-based broadcaster Fernando “Dong” Batul.  The hard-hitting journalist known as the "Bastonero ng Palawan" (Cane-wielder of Palawan) is the fifth journalist killed this year. He was gunned down in the early morning of May 22.

Batul is the 42nd journalist slain under the Macapagal-Arroyo administration and the 79th since 1986 when press freedom was supposedly restored.

Also last May 31, members of the Baguio Correspondents and Broadcasters Club, Benguet Press Corps, Philippine Press Photographers (PPP)-allied Cordillera Press Photographers and Videographers, College Editors Guild of the Philippines (CEGP) bowed their heads as Catholic Bishop Carlito Cenzon said prayers for each of the 79 slain journalists.

Free Legal Assistance Group (FLAG) national chairperson Pablito Sanidad said, “There should be no more eulogies like that one we did this evening in front of the Baguio City Cathedral.” He added that the killings of journalists “should not frighten us in the media sector. It should not discourage those who are still entering the profession – the campus journalists – whose rights are also being curtailed in the campuses.”

Lyn Ramo, a reporter of a regional weekly said, “our pens shall record history of a victorious people if we remain vigilant in guarding press freedom from where all freedoms shall emanate.”

Cenzon said that he shall continue to pray for all victims of political killings, not only those from the media.

“Strong Words”

Torres said that since 2001, when the power of the people made Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo president, we have already seen 42 journalists murdered, “a bloodletting that has far surpassed the combined toll under all her three immediate predecessors.And lest we forget, this administration, which owes its existence to the supreme will of the people, is the first that has deigned to muzzle the independent Philippine press since the dictator.”

It is ironic, he added, “that the democracy we are supposed to have won back in 1986 has claimed more journalists – 79 thus far – than the 34 lost throughout the whole 14-year Marcos dictatorship.”

We had not seen the end of this murderous rampage, Torres said. “But we will not be cowed into mute submission, neither by this government's indifference nor the dark schemes of those who wish to silence us. We renew our vow to be the voice of the voiceless, the succor of the dispossessed and the bane of the oppressors.” Bulatlat 

© 2006 Bulatlat ■  Alipato Publications

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