Reporters Without
Borders/Reporters sans Frontières
Open Letter
Her Excellency Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo
President of the Republic
Malacananga Palace
Manila, Philippines
Dear Madam President,
Reporters Without Borders, an organisation
that defends press freedom throughout the world, hails your statement on 1
August giving the police and the justice department 10 weeks to solve the
murders of at least 10 journalists and left-wing activists.
We hope this declaration of political will
on an important issue has not been made just for effect. For this reason,
we ask you to give precise orders to the security forces, above all the
Philippines Police Task Force, to reinforce or relaunch their
investigations. We also think it is vital that you should warn the
security forces not to use any extra-judicial means to eliminate critics,
including journalists.
In this respect, the accusations often
made by senior police and military officers against press freedom
organisations are very regrettable. At a meeting with representatives of
the Freedom Fund for Filipino Journalists, one of the heads of the
national police recently accused international journalists' organisations
of being backed by the Communist Party of the Philippines. Such charges
are grotesque and testify to a climate of mistrust between the authorities
and journalists' organisations that will in no way help the fight against
impunity.
More than ever, we hope for concrete
results. There is an urgent need for the killers and above all those who
hired them to be identified, arrested and tried. To this end, your
administration should disburse funds to reinforce the Philippines Police
Task Force and the witness protection programme. A budgetary effort is
needed to make good on the announcements.
Reporters Without Borders representatives
met the head of the national police and the justice department in Manila
in April 2005 and we expressed our concern about the climate of impunity
enjoyed by those who kill journalists in your country.
We would now like to alert you to 10 cases
of murders of journalists which, according to the information available to
us, have not been solved or have been solved only partially. We hope that,
within this 10-week deadline, the police and judicial authorities will
focus their work on these cases and will step up efforts to arrest those
who ordered these murders.
Firstly, we would like to remind you that
while the person who carried out the May 2002 killing of Edgar Damalerio
in Pagadian (in Zamboanga del Sur province), Guillermo Wapile, has been
sentenced to a long prison term, no one has ever been questioned or
detained on suspicion of ordering it. The police and judicial authorities
must urgently dispatch a sizable team of investigators to Pagadian, where
several journalists have been killed in recent years.
The prevailing impunity is especially
flagrant in Pagadian in the murder of journalist Edgar Amoro on 2 February
2005. Arrests warrants have been issued for two suspects, "Madix" Maulana
and Norhan Ambol, but the police have not detained them. According to a
Pagadian journalist, they have been seen on the streets of Pagadian for
months.
Rolly Canete was also murdered in Pagadian
on 20 January 2006. He was shot by unidentified gunmen who drove away on a
motorcycle. Aged in his 60s, Canete hosted programmes on local radio
stations on behalf of a parliamentarian and the parliamentarian's wife,
the province's governor.
Reporters Without Borders would especially
like to see the police solve the March 2005 murder of journalist and
anti-corruption activist Marlene Esperat in Tacurong (on the southern
island of Mindanao). She was gunned down at her home as her daughter and
two sons watched in horror. The hit men have been arrested but those who
hired them are still at large. While the trial of the gunmen is on track,
the presumed instigators, who include agriculture department officials,
were questioned and then mysteriously released.
We also urge you to instruct the police
and judicial authorities to focus on the murder of radio presenter George
Benaojan, 27, who was shot three times in December 2005 by a man using a
.45 calibre pistol who had been waiting for him for more than three hours
near a market in Talisay City. Witnesses saw the killer take off in a
white taxi. Benaojan's colleagues said he had recently received SMS death
threats. He previously escaped a murder attempt in August 2004 in which
those responsible were never identified.
Rolando "Dodong" Morales, 43, a presenter
on radio DXMD, was brutally killed by eight unidentified men on the
evening of 3 July 2005 near the city of Polomolok (in the south of
Mindanao).
Also on the island of Mindanao, Armando
Pace, the host of a programme on local radio station DXDS, who had often
been threatened for his criticism of local politicians and drug
trafficking, was gunned down on 18 July 2006 in Digos by two men on a
motorcycle - a common method of carrying out killings in the Philippines.
Two days after his murder, the police arrested three suspects - the
motorcycle driver and the shooter (who were confused, one with the other,
by the neighbours and relatives who identified them) and the motorcycle's
owner. They were reportedly released. In late July, two policemen were
suspended for trying to bring charges against the wrong person. So far the
people who ordered the killing have not been identified.
On Mindanao again, George Vigo, a
contributor to the Union of Catholic Asian News (UCAN), a news agency, and
his wife, Maricel Vigo, the host of a programme on radio dxND, who were
both also human rights activists, were murdered on 19 June 2006 in
Kidapawan by two men on a motorcycle. The police claimed to have solved
the case after identifying three members of the communist guerrilla group,
the NPA, as their killers. But the victims' colleagues dispute this claim
and accuse the police of being unable to arrest the real suspects. Several
sources say the investigation has been politically manipulated and
botched.
Ely Binoya, a Radyo Natin political
commentator who was outspoken in his criticism of corruption in the local
elite, was gunned down by two men on a moped as he was returning home on
17 June 2004 in the southern city of Malongon. Three months later, the
police arrested two of the four men they had named as suspects. Both
denied having anything to do with the murder. One of them, Ephraim Englis,
was described by the police as the mastermind. Despite evidence pointing
to his role, he was acquitted by the regional court in nearby General
Santos on 6 March 2006.
Finally, there is an urgent need for the
police to find Joey Estriber, the producer of the programme Pag-usapan
Natin (Let's talk about that) on local radio DZJO, who was kidnapped on 3
March 2006 by four men outside an Internet café in Baler (in Aurora
province). According to the National Union of Journalists of the
Philippines, Estriber struggled with his abductors and called out as he
was bundled into a pickup with tinted windows and no number places.
In the past, you expressed your desire to
put an end to the murders of journalists and human rights activists by
offering rewards for those providing information. These efforts have been
in vain, and both the perpetrators and instigators know they are
protected. The culture of violence in the Philippines is not the sole
explanation. It is the culture of impunity, for which senior government
officials share the blame, that has allowed the hit-men and those who hire
them to murder so many journalists throughout the country.
The solving of these 10 cases is a major
test for your government in its fight to combat press freedom violations,
corruption and organized crime. If it does not pass the test, Reporters
Without Borders will again raise this issue with the United Nations, and
with the UN human rights council in particular.
I look forward to a positive response to
our request.
Sincerely,
(Sgd.) Robert Ménard
Secretary-General
4
August 2006
Posted by Bulatlat
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