Filipino journalists bite the
bullet By Donald Kirk
MANILA - The biting tongues of Filipino
broadcast commentators deliver some of the
unkindest cuts for corrupt politicos, local
warlords, police officials and soldiers. Nearly
everyone in the Philippines listens to talk radio,
and broadcast journalists are dying for speaking
their minds.
The immense popularity of
on-air yakking explains why broadcast criticism of
foul deeds is one of the country's more dangerous
jobs - riskier, on a per capita basis, than
service as a left-wing activist or even as a
guerrilla for the communists' New People's Army or
militant Muslim groups. No question, the
Philippines is far and away the most perilous
place to be a journalist in Asia, if not the
world.
Unlike the hundreds of left-leaning
activists who've been wiped out
in
the past few years, most of the slain journalists
are known more for their political connections
than for their leftist proclivities. The common
denominator, though, remains the same - police
officials, hiding behind their badges, are most
often responsible for the killings, rights groups
contend.
"The thing behind the killing is
the state security forces," said Carlos Conde,
secretary general of the National Union of
Journalists. "With the journalists, it's local
warlords, police officers going after critical
journalists."
And, according to him, the
government doesn't seem to care.
Conde's
advocacy group notes that 79 journalists have been
killed since the "people power" revolution of 1986
that ousted Ferdinand Marcos after 21 years in
power. At least 42 journalists, mostly radio
broadcasters, have been murdered since President
Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo seized power five years
ago.
Spotty rights record Arroyo
has come under sharp domestic and international
criticism for contributing to a lawless
environment in which armed perpetrators operate as
though they have a license to kill, either in
pursuit of her government's counter-terrorism
policies or simply in enforcing law and order. The
unmitigated killing spree has badly eroded
Arroyo's democratic credentials and raises hard
questions about her government's commitment to
protecting even basic civil liberties.
"Now they say they've created a task
force, but they're not taking charges seriously,"
said Wilnor Papa, deputy director of the Manila
office of Amnesty International.
In a
scathing report condemning scores of killings of
armed and unarmed leftists, often allegedly by
assailants linked to armed forces, Amnesty
International cites a "lack of confidence in the
criminal-justice system" contributing to the
slaughter that has spiraled to include journalists
as targets.
Local vigilantes, "allegedly
linked to municipal authorities and the Philippine
National Police, have gone after suspected
criminals, including alleged petty thieves and
street children", according to the report. It is
in that atmosphere that "journalists were also at
risk of armed attacks", the report states.
Among the 42 cases of journalists being
killed since Arroyo came to power, only one police
officer has been convicted and sentenced. The
killer got a life term last November for murdering
radio commentator Edgar Damalerio. Global media
freedom groups such as the US-based Committee to
Protect Journalists (CPJ) hailed that conviction
and the government's stated commitment to pursue
the many remaining unsolved cases.
But "as
time passes, the successful prosecution in the
Damalerio case looks like an anomaly - not the
first step in a vigorous government campaign to
bring to justice the killers of journalists", CPJ
executive director Anne Cooper said. For all the
international ignominy, the killers almost always
get away with murder, and matters are only getting
worse.
On May 6, radio commentator Paul
Manaog was shot three times while walking with his
wife in the central city of Naga. Left for dead,
he remained in critical condition while
authorities made their usual investigation,
picking up spent cartridges and poking around. The
Philippine Center for Media Freedom and
Responsibility, another advocacy group, surmised
that Manaog was targeted for critical commentaries
about local politicos, possible rivals of the
family that owns the station where he worked.
Two weeks later, gunmen on motorcycles
killed Fernando Batul, a commentator for a radio
station in Puerto Princesa on Palawan Island in
the southern Philippines, with six shots as he was
driving to work. That killing, according to CPJ,
came one week after two hand-grenades and a letter
were left at Batul's home threatening harm to his
family if he continued with critical broadcasts.
Early last week, George and Mazel Vigo, both radio
broadcast journalists, were gunned down by
unidentified assailants on the southern island of
Mindanao.
The authorities round up the
usual suspects - ordering investigations, issuing
denials and sometimes even offering rewards. The
net effect, media-freedom groups contend, is one
vast top-down cover-up. On May 5, Philippine
National Police Senior Superintendent Samuel
Pagdilao said many murders of journalists had been
solved, while also denying what CPJ's Cooper
refers to as a "culture of impunity".
Local journalists say the reporting risk
has risen ever since Justice Secretary Raul
Gonzalez suggested that a number of journalist
victims were actually shot dead while drinking or
possibly fighting over women. He said the
accusations against the government were often
exaggerated by leftists - a category in which he
lumped Amnesty International.
Those
scribes who were still worried, Gonzalez advised,
might do well to go ahead and carry weapons - a
suggestion that raised the specter of target
practice becoming a part of journalist training
programs. In any case, the National Union of
Journalists said many killed journalists were
already armed but were outgunned.
Caught in the crossfire Filipino
journalists are often secondary victims in broader
conflicts, pitching the government against armed
leftist or radical Muslim groups. Others, it is
believed, have been gunned down in local political
turf wars where the police side with and carry out
orders made by offended politicians and local
heavies.
For example, in the government's
pursuit of the leaders of the leftist Bayan Muna
organization led by longtime former Communist
Party member Satur Ocampo, the government has
marshaled a panoply of agencies into joint action.
"It's a strategic holistic approach, the
use of government agencies with military tactics,"
said Girlie Patilla, leader of the Ecumenical
Movement for Justice and Peace. "It's not just the
killing, but neutralization of critics in various
provinces."
She specifically cites the
military-led "Operation Plan Freedom Watch", a
counter-insurgency program that often involves not
just the armed forces, but the departments of
social welfare, health and non-governmental
organizations.
The controversial approach,
including much of the nomenclature, appears to
have been at least partly inspired by the United
States, which is now pouring more than US$100
million a year into the Philippines' military
establishment for training and weapons, mainly to
combat terrorism. Since the attacks of September
11, 2001, Washington has identified the
Philippines' ongoing battle against Muslim
insurgent groups as a critical regional front in
its "global war on terrorism".
Conde, of
the National Union of Journalists, believes that
at most "one or two suspected leftists" were among
the journalists who have been killed in the past
five years.
"Mostly it's local politics,
crime syndicates," he said. "Mostly it's connected
with their work, for broadcasts, for stories on
air attacking politicians and drug lords."
The bigger question is whether the
killings and the lawless environment will
eventually provide a pretext for Arroyo to declare
an extended period of martial law, the tool that
the late dictator Marcos used to consolidate and
cling to power. Vergil Santos, chairman of the
Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility, is
convinced that is the government's motive.
"This is a desperate administration," he
said. "It wants to perpetuate its power. I have no
doubt [it is] behind the killing. The
administration is encouraging an environment where
these things can be done."
Journalist
Donald Kirk is a frequent visitor to the
Philippines and is the author of the books
Philippines in Crisis: US Power Versus Local
Revolt and Looted: The Philippines after
the Bases.
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