EDITORIAL – End to impunity? -Philstar

Malacañang has declared an end to impunity in assaults on media workers in the country. The statement was issued by the Presidential Task Force on Media Security following the release of a global report on journalists’ safety by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.

Where the task force statement is based remains as murky as the Palace assessment that the government’s pandemic response has been “excellent” a year into the public health crisis. UNESCO estimates that on average, a journalist is killed every five days around the world. UNESCO also reports that nine out of 10 journalist killings are unsolved.

In the Philippines, the conviction of the principal defendants in the 2009 Maguindanao massacre, mostly members of the Ampatuan clan and their henchmen, brought the country out of the worst five in the 2020 Global Impunity Index drawn up by the Committee to Protect Journalists. The Philippines was also removed from the list of most dangerous countries for journalists in 2018.

In highlighting the importance of the issue, UNESCO declares: “Impunity for crimes against the media fuels and perpetuates the cycle of violence and the resulting self-censorship deprives society of information and further affects press freedom. It directly impacts the United Nations’ human rights-based efforts to promote peace, security and sustainable development.”

Among the critical players in ending impunity is the judiciary. This, unfortunately, is one of the weakest links in the campaign against impunity, whether the targets of assassination are journalists, drug personalities, left-leaning activists and even lawyers. Even in the Maguindanao massacre case, it took a decade before the masterminds were finally convicted.

Apart from armed violence, journalists in the Philippines face other forms of threats. Last year the country slid by two notches to 136th place in the World Press Freedom Index. The slide was fueled by the shutdown of ABS-CBN, legal moves against news website Rappler, the deployment of troll armies against certain journalists, and cyber attacks against alternative news sites. Last December, Manila Today editor Lady Ann Salem was arrested on International Human Rights Day, detained on charges of illegal possession of firearms and explosives, and held for several more weeks even after a local court had ordered her release.

UNESCO is working with judiciaries in several countries for capacity building particularly in prosecuting crimes directed at media workers and threatening freedom of expression. In the Philippines, ending impunity is clearly a work in progress.