CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY (MindaNews/17 May)—Dubbed “Black Thursday,” media workers, journalists and press freedom advocates all over the Philippines wore black today, to condemn the continuing media killings and what they called the Aquino administration’s wanting performance in the fight against impunity.
In a text message late Wednesday night, Rowena Paraan, secretary general of the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP), enjoined all of its members to “join in mourning for a fellow colleague and our anger over the unabated attacks by wearing black tomorrow (May 17).”
Paraan was referring to Nestor Libaton, a member of the Catholic Media Network who was gunned down on May 8 along the highway in Barangay Don Enrique Lopez in Mati City. He was buried today.
The Cagayan de Oro Press Club joined the nationwide protest action by wearing black shirts the whole day.
“We condemn in the strongest terms the continued killings of our colleagues in media and alarming rise of the culture of impunity,” JB Deveza, COPC vice president for print and NUJP Mindanao Media Safety Officer, said in a phone interview Thursday.
A local advocacy group that started out as a forum on Facebook also joined “Black Thursday” to express their solidarity with the media community and to mourn the killing of “(media workers) who have risked their lives so that we may know the truth.”
“Bangon Kagay-an joins mainstream media practitioners by wearing black in observance of Black Thursday today—in memory of those mediamen (sic) who have risked their lives so that we may know the truth. May (the) perpetual light shine on your dearly departed media colleagues and may the Lord enlighten the hearts of the people so that the freedom of the press is respected and observed in our city. Mabuhay and CdO press,” the group said in a message posted on Facebook this morning.
In an emailed statement, the NUJP chapters in Davao and Mati expressed their “strong condemnation of the recent murder of yet another journalist working in Davao Oriental.”
“The killing of Libaton has put media workers in this province in more peril as they risk their profession and their very lives in their duties as journalists. The fate these journalists experienced shows how perilous it is for media in Davao Oriental to express critical opinion against authorities and businesses that have low tolerance for criticisms.”
On January 5, unidentified motorcycle-riding men shot publisher and broadcaster Christopher Guarin of General Santos City. He was the first media fatality in the country this year.
Aldion Layao, a former reporter and radio block-timer who went on leave to serve as a village councilman in Davao City was shot dead on April 8, also by motorcycle-riding men.
Radyo Bombo Koronadal City driver-reporter Rommel Palma was killed on April 24. Then, on April 30, unidentified assailants murdered Michael Calanasan, a columnist of a local daily in Laguna.
Thirteen media workers have been killed since President Benigno S. Aquino III took office in July 2010. (Cong Corrales/MindaNews)