Resolve media killings, GMA gov’t urged

Sen. Manuel Villar Jr. has urged the Arroyo administration to take appropriate measures needed for the early resolution of and to improve conviction rate of unsolved murder cases involving media people.

“It is very troubling that despite the constitutional guarantee on freedom of expression, a spate of killings on members of media has numbered at a record high of 100 since 1999, according to the National Union of Journalists of the Phi-lippines,” Villar said as he filed Senate Resolution 954.

The resolution noted that according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), the Philippines ranks sixth out of 14 countries in the 2009 Global Impunity Index and has an impunity index rating of 0.289 unsolved journalists murders per one million inhabitants. The CPJ is a US-based non-profit organization founded in 1981 in response to harassment of journalists by autho-ritarian governments and in 1992 began its compilation of journalists killed in the line of duty including the Philippines.

The Philippine National Police (PNP) reported that since 2001, 26 cases of media killings have been filed in court but only two ended up in convictions, and while the country has a vibrant press that takes its watchdog role seriously, it is one of the most dangerous places in the world to be a reporter.

“The assaults on journalists are becoming more brazen which does not only suppress press freedom but freedom of expression and the people’s right to know as well. The crisis of news safety has reached an intolerable level and must be addressed urgently,” the former Senate president, in a statement, said.

Villar, also the president of Nacionalista Party, noted that the Supreme Court has favorably acted on requests for change of venue in murder cases involving journalists to make sure that decisions are not tainted and manipulated by those involved and that justice may be served swiftly.

He also recommended that the increasing number of murder cases involving journalists may be solved through assigning sufficient prosecutors and investigators to similar cases, moving trials to safe and impartial venues, protecting witnesses and providing high-level political backing for all these efforts.

“I am deeply concerned about the killings of journalists in the Philippines. And I want the government to investigate and prosecute those responsible for the killings. I am expecting too of concrete results with the actual conviction of those guilty of crimes within a reasonable time period,” Villar stressed.