MANILA – Philippine and foreign media organizations on Tuesday condemned the massacre of at least 47 people, including journalists, in last Monday’s incident in Maguindanao.
Rowena Paraan, coordinator of the Media Safety Office of the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP) challenged the government to take immediate action.
“We challenge PNP (Philippine National Police) and Malacañang na huwag protektahan kung sino yung gumawa nito kahit gaano kalapit sa inyo. Kasi kung proprotektahan ninyo ang pumatay sa mga mamamahayag na ito, parang kayo na rin yung nag pull ng trigger,” Paraan said.
Paraan confirmed that 12 journalists were killed in Maguindanao and some of them were members of the NUJP.
Death toll to climb
However, she clarified that the list provided to them by their local chapters is not yet the final figure. They believe the number of journalists killed in the incident could still climb as authorities continue to recover more bodies.
“We think na yung 12 hindi pa yun ang buong bilang kasi based sa info na nakuha namin, there were actually 30 media practitioners who were invited to join the coverage,” said Paraan.
She added that they have tapped the help of local journalists to find out who actually went to cover the supposed filing of the certificate of candidacy of Buluan Vice Mayor Esmael Mangudadatu.
About a hundred armed men stopped the convoy of Mangudadatu’s wife while on their way to file the vice mayor’s COC on Monday afternoon. Aside form the group of journalists, Mangudadatu’s wife, several of his relatives, and supporters were also killed in the incident.
Police and military recovered some of the bodies in Sitio Masalay, Barangay Salman in Ampatuan town.
Highest number of journalists killed
“Ito ang isang incident with the highest number of journalists killed. A single incident kung saan we have at least 12 members of media slain. Wala kaming maalalang ibang kaso kahit sa kasaysayan ng Pilipinas na mas dadami pa sa bilang na ito na mga mamamahayag na pinatay,” Paraan said.
According to Paraan, most of the victims came from General Santos, Koronadal and Sultan Kudarat.
“Mayrong mga miyembro ang NUJP doon sa mga nasa listahan so medyo napakahirap para sa amin. Yung ibang hindi namin myembro some of them were actually participants sa mga trainings that we conducted in those provinces,” she said.
Data from the NUJP shows that 104 journalists have been killed since 1986. Of the total, 67 were killed under the Arroyo administration.
“Wala pang nahuhuli. Kung may nahuli man at naparusahan, puro gunmen. Not a single mastermind has been arrested and prosecuted,” Nonoy Espina, NUJP’s vice chairperson said.
“Its been so much a tradition that people expect that when media are there, nothing bad can happen because nothing bad usually happens in the glare of cameras. But yesterday was totally raw abuse of power,” he added.
For Malou Mangahas of the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ), the group of journalists who went to Maguindanao was there to cover a legitimate story.
“And they were not taking sides. There was nothing, no evidence of them taking sides,” Mangahas said.
She lamented not seeing the local government of Maguindanao “feeling as concerned about what happened”.
In solidarity
The Kapisanan ng mga Brodkaster ng Pilipinas (KBP) also expressed outrage and condemned the massacre.
According to KBP President Herman Basbaño, the carnage is another blow to the already battered image of Philippine media. Basbaño said the perpetrators in the incident showed disregard for law and order.
He likewise called on the national government and all law enforcement authorities to thoroughly probe and put the culprits behind bars.
The Philippine Press Institute (PPI) echoed the sentiments of other media groups and joined the call to urge the government to arrest the perpetrators and bring them to justice.
"The perpetrators should be arrested, prosecuted, and, after trial, punished. We must put a stop to the culture of impunity in the killing of journalists and make the country safe again for media people," PPI chairman-president Isagani Yambot said in a press statement.
The PPI also urged President Arroyo to disarm all political warlords, dismantle private armies, and intensify the drive against loose firearms, of which there are more than 110,000 in Mindanao alone.
In another statement, the Samahang Plaridel condoled with the victims and deplored what it described as “the most gruesome incidence of political violence involving rival clans in Mindanao.”
“No less than a swift and decisive action from Malacañang can prevent further escalation of violence that already snuffed the lives of local mediamen who were simply doing their jobs when caught in the crossfire,” the group said.
It added that “such politically-motivated heinous crimes demand a critical response not just to serve justice to the victims' families but more importantly, to put a stop to the culture of violence in Mindanao during election season”.
For members of the Malacañang Press Corps (MPC), the massacre worsens the prevailing climate of impunity in the county.
“We, officers and members of the Malacañang Press Corps seek justice for our colleagues, who were massacred in the line of duty in Maguindanao. The incident is terrible and sickening,” the group said.
A reminder
Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility (CMFR), in a statement, said the killings “are likely to trigger a cycle of reprisals and counter-reprisals that will raise even higher the levels of violence in Maguindanao, quite possibly in the rest of Mindanao, and even the entire Philippines itself. Violence has a way of begetting further violence, as Philippine experience demonstrates.”
It condemned the Maguindanao massacre as “not only an attack on a local politician, on his supporters, and on journalists. It was also an attack on what’s left of Philippine democracy, in which free and peaceful elections have never been as urgent an imperative as today.”
“Only the quickest and most decisive response in terms of arresting and bringing the perpetrators to court can prevent the November 23 killings from turning into one more incident to inspire the killers—of journalists, political activists, local officials, priests, lawyers and judges—who roam this country with impunity to keep on killing.,” said CMFR in the statement.
CMFR likewise rejected Malacañang’s declaration of a state of emergency in the province as well as in neighboring Sultan Kudarat and Cotabato City.
“The local military and police are widely known to be partial to certain groups, and are likely to harden that partisanship as elections in May 2010 nears. Indeed policemen are said to have been part of the group of 100 that waylaid the convoy the slain journalists were accompanying. A state of emergency will provide a convenient cover for military and police partisanship, among other reasons because it will provide them a legal basis for preventing the media from covering the impact on the citizenry of the political rivalries, based on clan disputes, that haunt Maguindanao and other areas of Mindanao as well as the overall conduct of the elections there,” said CMFR.
CMFR asserted the crucial task of media “to provide the citizenry the information it needs so it can make such decisions as to who to vote for as well as others related to its well-being and safety.”
“We reiterate, however, that no story is worth the life of a single journalist. Journalists must take the greatest care to assure their own safety, and to evaluate the risks involved before covering any event of public relevance anywhere. Journalists must thus take care to steer clear of partisanships likely to transform them into casualties of the clash between political parties and feuding clans, and to affirm through their work and actions their sole loyalty to the professional and ethical imperatives of fairness and truth telling,” said CMFR.
Meanwhile, the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) urged the international community to intervene to demand a full probe to bring to justice those responsible for the crime.
“This is an event which shocks journalists around the world to the core. We need a strong and urgent response from the Philippine government and the international community,” said Aidan White, IFJ General Secretary.
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