Press Release
January 25, 2006
LAW ENFORCERS INEFFECTIVE IN PREVENTING KILLINGS OF JOURNALISTS -- PIMENTEL
Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Q. Pimentel, Jr. (PDP-Laban) today
assailed the half-hearted efforts of the government and law
enforcement authorities in preventing and solving the killings of
journalists amid a report of the International Federation of
Journalists that has tagged the Philippines the second most
dangerous place for newsmen, after Iraq.
Pimentel hurled the criticisms in the wake of the murder of two more
journalists last week broadcaster and public relations
practitioner Rolando Canete of Pagadian City and
broadcaster-columnist Graciano Aquino of Morong, Bataan.
He said the governments sincerity and determination in protecting
journalists and solving the murder case are under a cloud of doubt
in the light of the revelation of the National Union of Journalists
of the Philippines (NUJP) that not a single centavo of the P3
million Press Freedom Fund has been released in the form of reward
for informants on the cases and assistance to the families of the
victims.
The Press Freedom Fund consists of a donation of P1 million from
President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and P2 million from Speaker Jose
de Venecia, Jr. The fund, which was turned over to the Philippine
National Police, was set up in the aftermath of the slaying of
community newspaper columnist and anti-graft crusader Marlene
Esperat in Tacurong, Sultan Kudarat in March, 2005.
Pimentel also deplored the governments failure to identify the
masterminds behind most of the killings of journalists and to break
up the gun-for-hire syndicates that are responsible for the
senseless assassination of members of the media profession,
particularly in the provinces.
He said the PNPs report of the President that 90 percent of the
murder of journalists has been solved does not jibe with facts, as
attested to by the NUJP and National Press Club.
With the perceived lackluster government efforts in solving these
murder cases, the slayings of working journalists have persisted as
the price they had to pay for exposing graft and other venalities in
the government and society. The gunmen and the masterminds behind
these killings seem to have no compunction in carrying out this
ghastly crime, the lone senator from Mindanao said.
On Jan. 20, broadcaster and PR man Rolando Canete, 60, was walking
on his way home in Barangay Kawit in Pagadian city when two
motorcycle-riding gunmen approached him and shot him at close range.
Canete was the 8th newsman to be killed in Pagadian City.
The following day, DZRH radio reporter and Central Luzon Forum
columnist Graciano Aquino, 40, was shot dead inside a cockfight
arena in Barangay Poblacion in Morong, Bataan.
Last year alone 10 journalists were murdered in the Philippines.
War-torn Iraq accounted for the death of 35 journalists in the same
period.
NPC records showed that at least 72 Filipino journalists have been
slain since 1986.
Pimentel requested PNP Director General Arturo Lomibao to furnish
his office and the Senate committee on public information and mass
media the complete report on the investigation and prosecution of
murder cases involving journalists.
He said the report of the PNP Task Force Newsman that 90 percent of
the journalists killings has been resolved should be checked and
validated in view of the assertion of NPC president Tony Antonio
that so far only one such murder case that of community newspaper
publisher-editor Edgar Demalerio, has been fully solved with the
courts conviction of his killer.
Pimentel said he was heartened by a report that a Cebu City Regional
Trial Court has rendered a verdict on the murder of photojournalist
Allan Dizon, by convicting killer, Edgar Belandres, last week.
Dizon, 30, a reporter-photographer of the Freeman daily and Banat
tabloid, was gunned down near SM City Cebu on Nov. 27, 2004.
Pimentel said the spate of killings of journalists poses a grave
threat to press freedom in the country aside from wreaking havoc on
the lives of their lived ones and families.
He lamented that the repulsive tag on the Philippines as the second
most dangerous country for journalists has not only brought national
shame but has also had the effect of scaring foreign tourists and
investors. |