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Journalist Roby Alampay and a Latin American colleague were discussing how unpunished attacks on newsmen sapped democratic governance. Suddenly, the heads of Peninsula Hotel lobby guests swiveled. Imelda Marcos had walked in. Without missing a beat, hotel musicians struck up “Dahil sa Iyo.”
“That’s impunity,” Alampay told his friend. Few were sanctioned for the Marcos dictatorship’s crimes. And “Impunity and Press Freedom” was the conference theme that brought 141 delegates from nine countries to Manila.
“Crimes against (Filipino) journalists and the impunity that surrounds such acts show that the press is as vulnerable here as it is in Latin America,” Inter-American Press Association’s Ricardo Trotti said. “The press needs to denounce the most in those countries which can protect the least.”
The Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility and Southeast Asian Press Alliance organized the meeting to exchange experiences of other countries. Co-organizers were the Open Society Institute and Committee to Protect Journalists.
Since 1986, at least 71 Filipino newsmen have been “salvaged.” Of these, 34 were cut down during the Macapagal-Arroyo regime. There’ve been few convictions. In Latin America, 334 journalists were murdered in over a decade. Seven were desaparecidos (the disappeared).
Society’s “natural ombudsman,” journalists are first to denounce a coup, terrorism or crime, conference panels noted. But impunity results in a form of journalism hesitant to expose the truth. The press jettisons its watchdog role for safer peddling of superficial trivia. To protect their staffs, some Mexican papers announced they would no longer report on the drug traffic.
Crimes against journalists have risen. “Two very different countries, the Philippines and Russia share two traits: they’re among the world’s deadliest nations for journalists and among the worst in solving those murders,” CPJ’s Joel Simon said. Organized crime and government corruption are major instigators.
In Colombia, narcotics earns twice the country’s gross national product. That illicit income taints whole sectors of society. “Don’t ask where the cow was born,” Argentina ’s Justice Eduardo Freiler advised delegates. “Ask instead where it grazes.”
Freiler is helping untangle Argentina’s cruel scandal of chiquitos desaparecidos: infants given away after their “disappeared” mothers, who delivered in military gulags, were “neutralized.” Childless military families often were adoptive parents.
In the Philippines, money from warlords, companies and officials, cripples law enforcement, noted ex-defense undersecretary Ruben Carranza and former CDN columnist, now of the International Center for Transitional Justice. Civilian paramilitary units like the Cafgu (Civilian Armed Forces Geographical Unit) “get funding from political leaders like the Dimaporos and Eduardo Cojuangco.” Cafgus ride shotgun for politicians, mining companies and pearl farms in Palawan. Reparation for victims is ignored.
State tolerance or complicity in killings results in “a sovereignty of the deaf and the dumb,” Supreme Court Chief Justice Reynato Puno told delegates. These cripple the press from providing information, a task crucial for a democracy.
“Until we do something to submerge this pernicious culture (of impunity), these attacks will continue to litter our collective consciousness with the corpses of people who were bearers of truth,” Puno added.
Some soldiers and policemen moonlight as executioners. They’re shielded by gutting the writ of habeas corpus. Their agencies stonewall by denying they hold the victim. The military also badgered government not to join 103-member countries that signed up for the International Criminal Court, Carranza said.
Article 28 of the Court’s “Rome Statutes” provides for “command responsibility,” Yale University’s Catherine Chung noted. Commanders and superiors would be criminally liable for crimes committed by their forces. The military use that legal vacuum to duck questions on desaparecidos like Jonas Burgos and others.
Taking a leaf from Latin America, the Puno Court adopted the “writ of amparo.” This remedy protects those whose right to life, liberty and security are threatened. These summary proceedings ban mere denials.
The initial 14 writs forced the military to produce persons they denied holding. “They didn’t want their camps searched.” And the writ forced identification of retired General Jovito Palparan as connected with desaparecidos.
Will the writ of amparo work? Too early to tell, said Supreme Court Justice Adolf Azcuna. Since 1970, Azcuna worked to get the writ into the Constitution. But it was only in 2008 that the courts wrote the rules for the writ. The amparo has been used to stymie prosecution in Guatemala – where it can take seven years just to reopen a journalist’s murder case.
“Some journalists don’t see violence against media as a major offense against press freedom,” the conference noted. And the average government prosecutor is overloaded with 450 cases. Threats against witnesses persist. “Often, they’re really, really, really scared,” noted tough private prosecutor Nena Santos – credited for getting convictions for the triggermen in the murder of Mindanao journalist Marlene Esperat.
Investigation has identified the masterminds in the Esperat and Edgardo Damalerio cases. “These murders can be stopped only when assassins, up to the masterminds, are held accountable,” human rights advocate Serena Diokno said.
“Keep in mind that behind each (murder) there is a journalist with a first and last name who died for defending a truth,” Trotti said. “There are widows. Orphans. Memory is important.”
