Note: This photo-essay was the special feature of the 28 Nov-04 Dec 2014 edition of FilAm Star, the weeky 'newspaper for Filipinos in mainstream America.' This blogger/author is the Manila-based Special News/Photo Correspondent of the paper.
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| Message of the IFJ-NUJP to President Aquino: "58 Dead, 5 Years, 0 Justice" |
Five years ago, on 23 November 2009, 58 men and women
were gunned down in Barangay Salman of Ampatuan town in Maguindanao province. They were on a convoy to the Commission on
Elections office in the provincial capital town of Shariff Aguak to file the certificate
of candidacy of then Buluan vice-mayor Esmael “Toto” Mangudadatu for governor
of the province.
The victims of what is now considered the worst
election-related violence in Philippine history included, among others,
Mangudadatu’s wife and 32 journalists and media workers. Some of them were
dumped in a pre-dug mass grave using a backhoe of the provincial government.
The alleged masterminds behind the massacre - Andal Ampatuan, Sr., Andal Ampatuan, Jr. and
Zaldy Ampatuan - and 109 of their
followers have been arrested and charged.
The trial has been going on since 2010 with hearings conducted twice a
week, but it is slowed down by postponements of hearings.
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| Banner of the NUJP at Bantayog ng mga Bayani. |
The IFJ is representing more than 600,000 journalists in
134 countries. It has conducted several
missions to the Philippines with regard to the Maguindanao massacre and had
made recommendations and requests to the government.
Last week, the IFJ with an international delegation and
NJUP conducted a mission in the country on the occasion of the 5th anniversary
of the massacre. Their purpose was to investigate the
government’s effort to secure justice for the victims. The mission visited the
massacre site; and spoke to families of the victims, members of the local media
community in southern Mindanao, the police, justice and government representatives
including Justice Secretary Leila De Lima.
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| Banner of the UP College of Mass Commucations in the campus. |
The IFJ-NUJP mission will issue a full report on December
23 on these key concerns: (a) a climate of fear continues to pervade
southern Mindanao, and has led to self-censorship and safety fears for local
media; (b) media organizations have failed to address the safety issues
affecting their staff; (c) witnesses in the case remain vulnerable with one
being killed in the past week taking to at least four who have been murdered
before giving evidence in the trial; and (d) five years on and the families of
the victims continue to suffer financially and psychologically and more must be
done to support them particularly as they have been subject to offers of bribes
to drop their civil actions in the case.
“The Philippines is undoubtedly an epicentre of impunity,”
said Jane Worthington, IFJ Asia-Pacific acting director, “and this massacre
puts the world’s attention on the inability of governments to investigate
crimes against journalists. This was the single largest slaughter of media
workers and five years on not a single conviction has been recorded.”
Australian representative Mike Dobbie, who has led all
IFJ missions since 2009, said: “It’s clear there has been little progress in
ensuring justice for the massacre victims, while the suspects in the crime
continue to make efforts to stall the case at every turn.”
Philippa McDonald, vice president of the journalists
union in Australia (the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance, MEAA) and a
director of Oceania’s Media, Safety and Solidarity Fund expressed how
heartbreaking it is to witness the grief and the trauma of the families of the
victims all this time. “Children are growing up without a breadwinner, families
are facing dreadful financial hardship and they’re suffering enormously,” she
said. “Their faith that justice will be delivered is severely shaken.”
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| Editha Tiamzon, widow of Daniel Tiamzon, one of the media workers killed in Ampatuan. |
The lingering grief and the trauma were strongly felt
from the recollection of Editha Tiamzon, wife of Daniel Tiamzon, a media worker
of UNTV, who, she said “was the last one to be dug up from the mass
grave.”
When she walked around the art installation recreating
the dead bodies of the massacre victims in various arrangements of disarray,
she could not help but cry especially when she was reading the names of
murdered journalists and media workers, one of them being her husband.
The art installation was composed of representations of
the dead bodies of media workers: dismembered or in gestures of pain and
suffering. They were made of newspapers
signifying their kind of work.
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Mrs Tiamzon cried when she went around the art installation recreating
the massacre scene littered with dead bodies.
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Taking off from the Maguindanao massacre, Schave De
Rozario, the General Secretary of the National Union of Journalists Malaysia
and representative of the South East Asia Journalists Union (SEAJU) spoke of
the “the coldblooded murders of journalists seem to be a growing solution
resorted to by politically linked groups, the powerful and corrupt in the
South-East Asian region”.
“The scourge of impunity across the region as a result of
this massacre indicates that these forces in the region believe that it is OK
to kill journalists and for politicians to do nothing,” he said. “The region
needs action and governments must move to protect media freedom.”
Nonoy Espina, director of the NUJP, spoke of the climate
of fear that is still very strong in Maguindanao and the rest of the region. He expressed concerns about the safety of
journalists. He cited journalists in
Davao being accused of being sympathizers of the New People’s Army, of being
placed under surveillance, and also of journalists in Quezon and southern
Tagalog provinces being threatened.
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The art installation with the remembrance wall of the
Bantayog ng mga Bayani as background
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During these more than four years of President Aquino’s
term, 33 journalists have been killed. “Most
of the murdered,” Espina said, “received threats first.” He mentioned that of the 177 murders of
journalists, there had been 10 convictions so far of look-outs, drivers, etc.
but zero of masterminds.
The IFJ-NUJP mission said that Justice Secretary De Lima
acknowledged the failings of the judicial system. According to the mission, she
told them that “there is still a culture of impunity and that is something that
we’re trying to address and eradicate.”
The mission is encouraged by her remarks that financial
support for the families of the victims on her agenda and she is intending to
raise it with President Aquino.
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| Art installation representations of victims. |
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