Journalists are particularly vulnerable where government institutions are weak and, by default, we turn to a free press to enforce accountability or good behavior by those in power. We ask journalists to play functions that governments usually perform, but can’t give them the protection and security that government personnel usually enjoy. And, come to think of it, in Maguindanao, apparently even the prosecutors are scared of the warlord clan of the Ampatuans.
In the first place, how did the journalists become part of the convoy that was ambushed? Apparently Vice Mayor Esmael “Toto” Mangudadatu had already received threats to his safety should he run for Maguindanao governor against the Ampatuans in the coming 2010 elections. He had earlier asked for the police to provide security for him and his group when they file his certificate of candidacy (CoC) on Monday this week, but no police protection was extended.
That was when his group turned to other precautions. The CoC would be filed by Mangudadatu’s wife, sister and aunt, on the assumption that an unwritten code of honor would immunize the women from attack. They in turn would be accompanied by a whole party of journalists from national and local newspapers, supposedly to deter malefactors with the threat of publicity and public outrage. As we now know, these measures are useless against henchmen who honor no code and fear no public and are beholden only to the orders of their boss.
This is one real example of the State’s abdication of its duty to keep peace and order, and shifting that burden to private parties. Journalists who serve as deterrents to malevolence assume personal risks. Remember those reporters who lingered too long during the Peninsula siege against rebel-soldiers led by now Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV? Government troopers might have felt that the journalists served as Trillanes’ insurance policy against instant execution. These reporters were roughed up, handcuffed with plastic ties and rounded up into buses.
The scale and barbarity of the Maguindanao massacre is bloodcurdling, but we musn’t make the mistake of thinking it is a problem unique to Maguindanao or specific to Mindanao politics. Global monitors of press freedom have long been alarmed by the killings and harassment of Filipino journalists—at one time so bad we were ranked right next to Afghanistan in terms of casualties from the media—though nobody could have imagined the bloodletting they’re capable of in Ampatuan town in Maguindanao.
The records of the Philippine Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility show that, as of April 2007, a total of 63 professional media men had been killed in the line of duty since the fall of Marcos in February 1986. Significantly, of the 63 victims, 43 were radio broadcasters and 60 worked outside Manila. The killings peaked during the presidency of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. Of these killings, only four prosecutions have resulted in convictions and, in the most celebrated of them, the murder of Marilyn Esperat of The Midland Review in Mindanao, the Supreme Court had to transfer the venue of the trial to Cebu to embolden the witnesses to testify.
What is significant is that many of these victims belonged to community newspapers and provincial radio stations. A look at the victims of the Maguindanao murders painfully confirms that pattern. The Center for International Law, a Manila-based NGO against impunity, lists the slain correspondents’ affiliations. Ten journalists came from General Santos City media outfits: Socsargen Today, Socsksargen News, Saksi News, News Focus, Radio dzRH, UNTV, Manila Bulletin. Another 10 came from Koronadal City: Punto News, Bombo Radyo, Gold Star Daily, Prontiera News, Periodico Ini (5). Four came from Tacurong City: Gold Star Daily, Central Mindanao Inquirer, Midland Review, Mindanao Gazette. Finally, there were two news correspondents from Davao City and one from Cotabato City, their news organization yet unreported.
In the case of Periodico Ini, a news weekly published in the Hiligaynon language, the massacre wiped out its entire staff, except for the founders of the newspaper, the husband and wife team of Ferdinand and Normita Solinap.
The provincial press has borne the brunt of the killings because it is at the local level where government institutions are most feeble, where they are most under the thumb of local elites, the old families, or the new warlord class—they who think they can literally get away with murder.
Sadder still, weak institutions victimize the casualties again even in death. The Center for International Law further reports that forensic work on the victims’ remains has been hampered by lack of equipment and facilities, and the haphazard handling of evidence. Topping this macabre list is the lack of mortuaries with refrigeration facilities. Officials of the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines, in addition, were shocked to see the police dig up a woman’s bloodied and broken body using the claw of a backhoe, those giant tractor-like vehicles for excavating rocks. The corpses of three journalists were later found in that gravesite. Accordingly, the Center has tapped Dr. Benito Molino, forensic expert of the Medical Action Group and the Asian Federation Against Involuntary Disappearances, who is now in Maguindanao. The Center will also fly in Jose Pablo Baraybar of Peru, a forensic anthropologist who has done work on the genocide victims in Yugoslavia and the hostage casualties in Lima.
The Arroyo administration has adopted as its motto: “Matatag na Republika.” Strong Republic. Let’s see how “tatag” it truly is against a warlord ally whom it has coddled all these years.
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