Task force on media killings to be formed

MANILA, Philippines – With a radio anchor shot and seriously wounded on the first day of the new administration, President Duterte is forming a task force to deal with the killings of journalists, Malacañang said yesterday.

Speaking over state-run radio dzRB, Communications Secretary Martin Andanar said the legal team of the Presidential Communications Office (PCO) and that of Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea are drafting an administrative order to define the roles of the task force.

“We are doing this so that our colleagues in the media will feel safe and to stop the extrajudicial killings of members of media,” Andanar said. 

An existing committee, he said, is tasked to address extrajudicial killings in general. The new order would focus on media killings. 

Andanar made the announcement three days after Saturnino Estanio Jr., a broadcaster in Surigao City, survived an ambush – the first incident of media violence under the Duterte administration.

The 41-year-old Estanio, an anchorman for dxRS Radio Mindanao Network, was known for his commentaries against illegal drugs and gambling.

His five-year-old son was also shot and critically wounded.

Last May, Duterte stirred controversy after saying that some of the slain journalists were involved in extortion or shady transactions.

Some media groups and the United Nations scored Duterte for his remark, which they interpreted as an apparent endorsement of media killings.

Duterte, however, said that his statement was misinterpreted and maintained that he would never condone extrajudicial killings because these are against the law. 

Duterte, who used to hold lengthy late-night press conferences, has since evaded journalists and has vowed not to grant interviews until the end of his term.

The Philippine press has been dubbed as the freest in Asia, but the country still ranks low in terms of media freedom due to the risks faced by Filipino journalists.

It ranked 138th in the 2016 World Press Freedom Index, making it one of the countries with “very difficult” press situations.

While the ranking was an improvement from 141st in 2015, Reporters Without Borders, the media watchdog behind the index, noted that those behind the killing of journalists “usually go unpunished.”

“Often committed by private militias in order to silence reporters who are investigating them, these murders usually go unpunished,” Reporters Without Borders said.

“In this climate of terror, media outlets succumb to self-censorship or corruption, in which journalists receive ‘favors’ in exchange for positive coverage.” 

More than 150 journalists have been killed since democracy was restored in the country in 1986, according to watchdog Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility.

Previous administrations have formed bodies that would address extralegal killings.

In 2007, then president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo issued AO 211 creating a task “against political violence.”

In the order, Arroyo called political violence “a fundamental moral and governance challenge.”

The task force was directed to “prioritize the formulation and implementation of measures to prevent further political violence and ensure peace and security all over the country.”

It consisted of representatives from the justice, defense, interior and local government departments, offices of the national security adviser, political adviser, Presidential Human Rights Committee, and the Philippine Information Agency.

In 2012, then president Benigno Aquino III created an interagency committee on extralegal killings, enforced disappearances, torture and other grave human rights violations through AO No. 35.

The committee was tasked to make an inventory of all cases of extralegal killings, investigate unsolved cases, monitor and report cases under investigation and trial, and investigate and prosecute new cases.