Arroyo Told: Stopping Killing of Journalists Could Be Your Legacy

A multinational Southeast Asian journalists’ mission has called on the Arroyo government to intensify efforts to prosecute the killers of journalists and to arrest the suspected masterminds in the 2005 killing of a woman journalist.

“We are alarmed by the continuing killing of media workers in the Philippines and the inadequate measures the government is taking to stop them,” the group said in an end- of- mission statement.

“Given the prevailing sense of urgency in the impunity issue and in anticipation of an increase in the number of journalists being killed as the 2010 presidential election draws closer, we call upon President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo to take the steps necessary to prevent that unfortunate development. Madame President, a halt to the killing of journalists as well as political dissenters would be one the enduring legacies you can leave the Filipino people as your term ends.

“We note with concern that despite intensified efforts by civil society and Philippine media groups themselves to convince the government, its law enforcement agencies and the judiciary to address the issue of impunity and the killings, the murders, a majority of which occur in the provinces, have been continuing. An average of five journalists has been killed in the line of duty in the Philippines since 2001 when the Arroyo administration came to power. By the end of February 2009, the count of slain journalists had gone up to 78 since the end of the Marcos dictatorship in 1986, according to statistics compiled by the Philippine-based Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility.”

The Southeast Asian Press Alliance (SEAPA) mission, which visited the Philippines from March 21 to 24 to mark the fourth anniversary of the killing of Sultan Kudarat journalist Marlene Esperat, said that while it welcomed the creation of “tracker teams” in the Philippine National Police, the Arroyo administration could still do much more by tracking down the killers of journalists and arresting suspected masterminds.

The tracker teams, said the Philippine National Police in a meeting with the mission, are charged with speedily locating and arresting suspected killers of journalists.

Esperat, who exposed corruption in the regional office of the Department of Agriculture (DA) and in local government, was killed in her home in Tacurong City on March 24, 2005. Her expose of DA wrongdoing has been linked to the 2004 fertilizer scam scandal in which DA funds were allegedly used for the elections that year.

The SEAPA mission was composed of Doung Hak Samrithy, vice president of the Cambodian Association for the Protection of Journalists; Jajang Jalamudin, secretary general of the Alliance of Independence Journalists, Indonesia; Pradit Ruangdit , secretary general of the Thai Journalists Association; V Gayathry, executive director of Center for Independent Journalists, Malaysia; and Kulachada Chaipipat, campaign and advocacy officer, Southeast Asian Press Alliance (SEAPA), Bangkok, Thailand, the Head of the Mission.