Careless States

by Alan Davis
Philippine Human Rights Reporting Project

The Russian judiciary last week came under heavy international attack
after three defendants were acquitted of killing Anna Politkovskaya.

The Russian journalist was rightly celebrated by the international
community as a leading chronicler of state abuse. I was lucky enough
to meet her briefly a few years before she was cruelly gunned down
outside her apartment block in Moscow.

Three years after her death, she is still rightly celebrated and very
fondly remembered.

The international community blames the Kremlin at the very least for
not caring enough to see justice be done to such an iconic figure.

Will the world remember Ernie Rollin? Does the world or anybody
outside the small community of Philippine journalists even know who he
was?

Maybe not – but that should not stop us from working tirelessly to
ensure justice be done –not just for his sake –but for our sakes too.

Ernie Rollin, a production manager and block-timer at Radio dxSY in
Ozamiz City in southern Philippines was shot dead yesterday morning in
nearby Oroquieta City as he was heading for work.

He has been described in the brief newspaper reports as a
`hard-hitting’ commentator. Most radio block-timers are described that
way – in news reports that somehow pass as their obituaries.

His girlfriend reported how two helmeted men on a motorcycle stopped
and shot him twice before one of them allegedly walked over to where
he was lying and finished him off at point blank range in the back of
the neck.

If this is not a judicial execution, I am not too sure what is.

Statements attributed to Justice Undersecretary Ricardo Blancaflor
suggest that a political motive has not been ruled out. Task Force 211
will therefore be involved. Blancaflor is quoted as saying that “the
full force of the law will be used to bring (these criminal elements)
to justice.”

But then the former anti-terrorism chief said something very similar
in the case of Arecio Padrigao who was shot dead outside his
daughter’s school in Gingoog City by two assailants in November.

And that case was closed and the investigation heralded a great
success after two well-known known local fugitives were charged with
the killing.

So can Rollin’s family and his girlfriend expect real justice? Should
fellow journalists in Ozamiz City (and elsewhere) be feeling more or
less safe this week?

Anna Politkovskaya was a famous journalist. Ernie Rollin much less so.
In the end, Politkovskaya’s fame was not enough to keep her safe,
while Rollin’s fame was non-existent.

What they do have in common is they lived, worked and died in
countries where impunity rules.

In some ways the Philippines is unlike Russia, but in many they are
all too similar –not least in the way life seems so cheap and that
corruption and human rights abuses and killings all go unpunished.

Both are careless states. States which don’t seem to care enough to
protect its people.

Sad to say, the Philippines today also increasingly reminds me of the
Serbia I used to work in during the 1990s.

The international community had an increasingly frustrated
relationship with the government in Belgrade and the same thing seems
to be happening here.

Journalists were threatened, attacked and killed on a regular basis –
but so too was everybody else.

I am often drawn into debates about whether journalists deserve extra
special attention or pleading because of the work they do. But even
though a journalist myself, I come down on the side of saying, all
things considered – `no’.

Terrible it is for a journalist to be killed in the line of their
work, so it is for an activist to be gunned down – so too a judge, a
prosecutor, a policeman –a farmer – even an `informer’.

Rollin was a block-timer and so too was Badrodin Abas: He was shot
dead last month in Cotabato City in what police claim was a case of
mistaken identity. Both deaths are appalling.

All killings are.

And just as we should be wary about ranking one killing to be somehow
more important or appalling than another, we need to recognize that
you don’t have to be a journalist or an activist to become a victim of
an extrajudicial killing.

Last week in Quezon City, suspected carjackers also reportedly became
victims of extrajudicial killings when they were allegedly stopped and
shot dead by police officers at point blank range inside their
vehicle. And not so long ago, a few weeks after New Year, a series of
bound and gagged bodies –some with warnings posted on them – were
found floating in the Pasig River.

Be it Ozamiz, Cotabato, Gingoog City, Manila, or even Moscow,
journalists are killed, politicians are killed, activists killed,
gangsters are killed. Each and every killing counts and demeans us and
our society more.

We should all wish for a real investigation and the successful
prosecution of those who killed –and too possibly those who ordered
the killing of Ernie Rollin. In so doing, we ensure justice not simply
for him and his family, but ultimately for ourselves.

The relationship between media and civil society and how each can help
the other is an ongoing topic –but now is the time when we should also
be thinking much more about building better synergies between the
media and the justice system.

In so doing, we can help build a state that cares.