CMFR/PHILIPPINES—A journalist from Bangued was unharmed after gunmen fired at her family’s house last 14 May 2009. Bangued is the capital of Abra, a province approximately 408 kms northwest of Manila.
Marjorie Bandayrel-Trinidad, news editor of the weekly community newspaper Abra Today, said she and her husband were awakened by the sound of breaking glass at [...]

HUMAN RIGHTS   By Rorie R. Fajardo / Philippine Human Rights Reporting Project |  The Congress’ decision to close the coffers from CHR came at one of the most distressing times for human rights in the Philippines.

PRESS FREEDOM   Aside from killings and physical attacks, the Philippine press also faced legal suits and other harassment from government officials and powerful personalities.

PRESS FREEDOM & HUMAN RIGHTS   “It is outrageous for the Philippine government to declare these murders have been ‘properly attended to’ when not one single conviction has been made in any of these cases,” said Joel Simon, CPJ’s executive director.

PRESS FREEDOM   At least 24 journalist murders have gone unsolved in the last decade. This pervasive climate of impunity has led to repeated attacks on the press, with renewed levels of violence recorded in 2008. Impunity Index Rating: 0.273 unsolved journalist murders per 1 million inhabitants. Last year: Ranked 6th with a rating of 0.289.

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Related: Impunity in the Philippines: No exaggeration

PRESS FREEDOM   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.

PRESS FREEDOM / HUMAN RIGHTS   While the case filed over the Esperat murder is one of a handful that has resulted in convictions, only the men who pulled the trigger have been punished.

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has protested over the disproportionate decision of an Iraqi court which sentenced television journalist Muntadhar al-Zeidi to three years in jail for throwing his shoes at former American president George W. Bush in December last year.
“This sentence is hugely out of proportion,” said Aidan White, IFJ General Secretary. [...]

PRESS FREEDOM   100 deaths, meant to silence men and women whose calling was to serve the people’s right to know; 100 deaths that expose as a mockery government’s claims to being a democracy.

PRESS FREEDOM   More popularly known as “Babayeng Bagol” in Cagayan de Oro City, Nilo Labares has been receiving a number of death threats on his cell phone weeks before the tragic incident on Thursday night that almost cost him his life.

The National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP) condemns the attack on Cagayan de Oro broadcaster Nilo Labares of Radio Mindanao Network’s station dxCC who was shot and seriously wounded the evening of March 5, 2009.
Colleagues describe Labares as a hard-hitting commentator who was
active in denouncing illegal activities such as cockfights and
unlicensed entertainment joints [...]

BREAKING NEWS  |  A reporter-anchorman of a radio station in Cagayan de Oro City was shot by unidentified gunmen at around 8 p.m. today, PinoyPress has learned. Nilo Labares, a longtime reporter and anchorman of Radio Mindanao Network-DXCC, a leading radio station in Cagayan de Oro City, is now in critical condition and undergoing surgery at a local hospital.

PRESS FREEDOM   Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel, Jr. also proposed “that any person who has already been accorded the right to reply by the mass media over an objectionable story or commentary could not sue for libel anymore over the same item.”

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has today launched a new website to promote its Ethical Journalism Initiative (EJI) Campaign about making core values of journalism an integral part in today’s media worldwide. The website (ethicaljournalisminitiative.org) will host information about the campaign which is framed around key tenets of journalism such as truth telling, [...]

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) welcomes the formation of the Legislative Caucus on Rights and Free Expression, a new regional body of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), as a step toward promoting press freedom and the rights of journalists and the media in Southeast Asia.
The formation of the Caucus was announced at [...]