MANILA, Philippines – The Philippines is again on the list of countries most likely to let journalists’ killings go unpunished, according to the latest report of a media watchdog.
The Philippines is in 9th place of the Committee to Protect Journalists’ 2024 Global Impunity Index Rankings. The country was behind Mexico and Iraq, while Haiti and Israel and Occupied Palestinian Territory were the top 2, respectively.
According to CPJ’s index rankings, there are still 18 unresolved murders of journalists in the Philippines, and the country has been in the index for 17 years already. The Philippines and its regional neighbor Myanmar were the only Southeast Asian countries in the CPJ’s 13-item rankings.
“The Philippines, also on the index every year since 2008 and frequently in the No. 1 or No. 2 spot, has logged an unsolved murder of a journalist almost every year since 1992. Full justice remains elusive for the 32 reporters and media workers killed in the Maguindanao massacre 15 years ago — one of the deadliest attacks on the press – as well as journalists like Gerry Ortega, a radio broadcaster killed in 2011,” the report read.
The CPJ said there’s impunity when people or countries are not held responsible for the murders of journalists.
Within the index period of its report, the CPJ said there was clear evidence in 241 of the killings that journalist murders were directly linked to their jobs. Of this number, less than 4% achieved full justice, 19% obtained partial justice (or some of the killers were held into account), while the remaining 77% attained no justice.
The CPJ said, since 1992, it has classified 974 cases of journalist killings as murder, with only 5% attaining full justice, while 79% of the cases remain unsolved.
“The figures are largely unchanged this year; as are the dangers journalists face. Impunity is as endemic as ever, and the families and colleagues of murdered journalists have little chance of seeing anyone held responsible,” the media watchdog said. “Nowhere is this reality more grim than in the cases of 30 journalists whose murderers are still free more than 30 years after CPJ documented their 1992 killings.”
Philippines in focus
The Ortega case, which the CPJ specifically mentioned, was the epitome of how killers of journalists go unpunished in the Philippines. Environmental defender-journalist Ortega was gunned down in Puerto Princesa City, Palawan in 2011 after exposing corruption in his province and how their former governor, Joel Reyes, allegedly misused the Malampaya fund, or the proceeds from the exploration of the Malampaya gas and oil fields in Palawan.
Reyes was the mastermind behind Ortega’s killing, and was taken to custody anew by authorities last September. It’s been 13 years since Ortega was gunned down, but his case is still not fully resolved up to this day. Reyes stalled the case by hiding and by challenging it in different levels of the justice system — from the prosecutors up to the Supreme Court.
At least three warrants have also been issued in the duration of the case.
Based on the tally of the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP), at least 199 journalists have been killed in the country since 1986. This number includes all journalists slain in relation to their job. Within this period, most of the journalists were killed during the reign of former president Gloria Arroyo at 103, followed by Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino at 32, and then Rodrigo Duterte at 23. Arroyo ruled the Philippines from January 2001 to June 2010 or a total of 9.5 years, while Aquino and Duterte were in power for six years.
The gruesome Maguindanao Massacre happened during Arroyo’s time in 2009.
Meanwhile, four journalists have been killed under the current administration of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.: Rey Blanco, Percival “Percy Lapid” Mabasa, Cresenciano Bunduquin, and Juan Jumalon. The most controversial of these, the Lapid case, remains unsolved up to this day even though the alleged mastermind has already been named.
Former Bureau of Corrections chief Gerald Bantag has yet to be arrested by the authorities more than a year since two different courts issued separate warrants against him for the killing of Lapid and a person deprived of liberty (PDL) named Jun Villamor. – Rappler.com