CEBU, Philippines - Over 100 members of the media in Cebu showed their indignation against the gruesome killing of 57 innocent people, including 34 journalists, last Monday morning in Maguindanao in a protest march yesterday amid Malacañang's declaration of November 26 as a “National Day of Mourning” for the victims.
Majority of the media wore black shirts and some carried placards as they walked several hundred meters away from JY Square in Lahug to the Marcelo Fernan Cebu Press Center in Sudlon for a short program.
"The media cry for justice for the murder of their colleagues,” said Elias Baquero, president of the Cebu Federation of Beat Journalists, the group that spearheaded the activity.
“What happened in Maguindanao last Monday has put the Philippines in the limelight including in the international scene as it was the first time that an estimated 34 journalists at the latest count were killed in a single day, and by the same perpetrators. Such a horrible crime committed by heartless people."
"No word can appositely express the gloom and grief the whole country is experiencing right now. We are tormented as a nation and as a people. The victims and their loved ones cry for justice," Baquero reads the statement of his group.
The statement is part of the CFBJ resolution condemning the massacre of the members of the media in Maguindanao. CFBJ is an umbrella organization of nine other media groups in Cebu namely the Regional Journalists in Cebu, City Hall Association of Reporters in Media, Capitol Association of Reporters in Tri-Media, Cebu Economic Journalists Association, Sports Correspondents, Defense and Police Corp. Reporters, Media Association for Life, Liberty, Equality and Truth, Media in Cebu South, Association of Reporters in Mandaue and Lapu-Lapu City for Integrity, Truth and Equality and LENS composed of Cebu's photographers.
Some of Cebu's leading media personalities also showed up while Cebu first district Rep. Eduardo Gullas and Cebu City Councilor Sylvan Jakosalem also showed their support.
The Philippines is now tagged as the most dangerous place for media by the International Federation of Journalists because of the brutal incident. The international media has even tagged the Philippines as worst than Afghanistan, Pakistan, Lebanon and Serbia because these countries are at war and that the protagonists respect the media, according to the CFBJ resolution.
Meanwhile, the Cebu Media Legal Aid said "The Maguindanao massacre already stands out for its sadistic brutality and cruelty and utter contempt of the state's will. What may still enhance its record of inhumanity is when the Government fails to mete out the punishment the perpetrators justly deserve."
"We don't call for the lynching of the suspects although many of our people may want that. We demand though that the apparatus of law and order and the wheels of justice move swiftly, unimpeded by the guiles of wealth and power," it added. – Niña G. Sumacot with PIA-7/WAB (FREEMAN NEWS)