On March 24, 2005 Filipino journalist and anti-corruption crusader, Marlene Garcia-Esperat, sat down to dinner with her children. Upon hearing a knock at the door, she excused herself to greet the visitor. Clad in her usual fashionable attire and trademark eye shadow – which prompted colleagues to draw comparisons to Erin Brockovich – she opened the door. The visitor greeted her and then shot her at point blank range in full view of her children.
Garcia-Esperat knew that hit-men could be after her. She had recently exposed a Government corruption scandal: several Department of Agriculture officials (and even current President Gloria Macapagel-Arroyo) had dipped their fingers into a $432 million fertiliser fund intended for local farmers. She turned up to the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism wearing glittery eye makeup and told her colleagues: “I want to look pretty when the assassins come to get me.”
The murder of Garcia-Esperat is one of the first in a spate of extrajudicial killings that have occurred since President Macapagel-Arroyo came to power in 2001. The murders have culminated in the recent slaying of radio journalist Ernesto Rollin. He was gunned down on February 23 of this year while waiting with his girlfriend to catch a bus to work.
Filipino journalists have been subject to assassinations ever since the Ferdinand Marcos dictatorship ran from 1972 to 1986. More than 30 journalists were killed during his rule. He attempted to shut down the media and silenced his critics by posting mouthpieces around the 7,000 islands that is the Philippines’ archipelago.
Twenty-three years later, the safety and freedom of the press in the Philippines has continued to worsen as the government clamps down on the media. The National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP) have tallied an even 100 journalists who have been killed in the line of duty, including the 64 who have been murdered since Macapagel-Arroyo took up presidency.
Vice Chairman of the NUJP, Nonoy Espina, attributes this to the Philippines’ unique geographical, political and social makeup. “In many cases, a political bailiwick – province, city, or town – is a virtual fiefdom for whoever is the current governor or mayor. Many are literally warlords,” he says.
Corruption amongst government and political officials is rife, due to the isolation of many of the islands. In many cases, crooked politicians, policemen and military officers are connected to local crime rings, sometimes even running them. Espina also identifies political office in some regions as a ‘family business’ where leaders appoint wives, sons and other relatives to different posts. It can even be a ‘commodity to be sold’ to the highest bidder.
In a country exhibiting such corruption, stories are never in short supply for journalists to pursue. Yet aiming to expose the corruption is to his or her own detriment. Police are often in on the fraudulency, whilst reports of death threats fall on deaf ears. Such is the case of Nilo Labares, who on March 5 of this year survived an assassination attempt while aboard his scooter.
Labares had just finished presenting his radio program and was around the corner from his home, in Macasandig village, when he was shot several times in the back by a man riding tandem on a motorcycle. Labares feigned pulling a gun from his jacket, causing the hit-man to flee. The bullets caused severe internal injury, forcing surgeons at the Cagayan de Oro Hospital to remove one of his kidneys.
The news presenter of Radio Mindano Network had been reporting on illegal gambling, and went to police after receiving death threats on his mobile phone for two weeks.
Buckling under international pressure, the Philippines government attempted to cease the blasé approach to investigating murders and assassinations attempts that had bred a culture of impunity. The result was the establishment of Task Force Usig (TFU) in 2006, followed by the Melo Commission in June 2007. While these actions attempt to see officials who commission the deaths of journalists become accountable for their actions, international organisations have slammed these approaches. Amnesty International, along with victims’ families, have been critical of the task force’s crime scene analysis and unwillingness to interview suspected military and police personnel.
Melanie Pinlac, Press Alerts Officer at the Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility says, “Despite these task forces, the number of work-related killings has increased from two in 2007 to six in 2008. Also, many suspected masterminds and killers remain at large.”
Pinlac says, “There are also cases where government officials and law enforcement officers are involved.” Radio broadcaster Dennis Cuesta died on August 9, 2008, five days after he was attacked. The alleged gunman is said to be a police inspector of General Santos City.
The United Nations Special Rapporteur, Professor Phillip Alston, criticised the Philippines government for providing poor security for journalists in a press statement released after a visit to the country in early 2007. He identified that the present message in the Philippines is that “…if you want to preserve your life expectancy, don’t act as a witness in a criminal prosecution for killing.” He also expressed disapproval at figures that indicate an 80 per cent failure rate for investigations to progress to the prosecution stage, which casts doubt on the TFU’s effectiveness.
What defence has the Philippines government given for the high number of journalists killed? Alston was told that two persons listed as killed were actually alive. He says: “Two errors … do very little to discredit the vast number of remaining allegations.”
Espina agrees that the government should be doing more to abide by their duty to protect the lives and liberties of its constituents. She believes the “lack of interest in ending the bloodshed” means the actual masterminds of the killings remain free.
“Of the handful of cases that have resulted in convictions, it was the media who did most of the leg work, from hunting down evidence, to securing witnesses and the victims’ families, to doggedly watching the progress of the cases and pestering authorities into doing their jobs. But even in these cases, only the killers have gone to jail,” she says.
C.C Hidalgo, Editor of Pinoy Press says the deaths of colleagues act as a deterrent to journalists working on controversial cases. “The conviction rate of the killers is dismal. Only one has been convicted since 2001 and not one mastermind has been arrested or charged.”
Hidalgo says the help of the international community is vital in combating impunity: “Those responsible need to know that this cannot go on and the government needs to be pressured to act to stop the killings.”
Journalists in the Philippines are also subject to draconian defamation laws that incriminate those who display dissent from the government. Radio broadcaster Alex Adonis received a four and half year jail sentence in 2007 for slandering MP Prospero Nograles, a close friend of the president. A Reporters Without Borders statement released in the same year said Adonis’ lawyer mysteriously “withdrew his services,” leaving the journalist unrepresented for the rest of this trial.
More notable is the case of president Macapagel-Arroyo’s husband, Jose Miguel, who filed defamation cases against more than 40 journalists who accused him of corruption. Journalists retaliated by filing a complaint against the first husband and demanding one peso in damages for every citizen.
One wonders how a journalist in the Philippines can do their job of safe-guarding the democracy when they face assassination or jail time for ‘defaming’ public officials. Espina goes as far as to question the Philippines status as a democracy: “In a democracy they do not kill journalists, much less jail them, do they?”
Espina and his colleagues are calling for a stop to the killings carried out by triggermen who show no mercy; slaying their victims at close range, in front of their children and loved ones, in broad daylight.
“There is nothing we would wish for more than that the killings end and freedom of the press and of expression are given full respect and protection. Alas, there is little reason for optimism,” he says.
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This is such a well written and put together piece. It doesnt only help open your eyes to the problems that journalist’s face in countries other than ours, but it allows a budding journalist (such as myself) to see how much of an impact that my job can potentially have.