EDITORIAL — Sitting ducks

Occasionally they survive. Journalists Delfin Mallari and Johnny Glorioso were driving to a local radio station in Lucena City Thursday morning when two men on a motorcycle pulled up on the driver’s side of the car and shots rang out. Mallari, who was driving, was hit twice in the body; he was pronounced out of danger later in a hospital. The shots missed Glorioso. Mallari has voiced suspicions that a congressman might have ordered the ambush.

A politician is also suspected in the murder of another journalist, Carmelo Palacios, whose body was found in Nueva Ecija last Wednesday. Police said Palacios appeared to have been bludgeoned to death. Palacios was the latest addition to the list of journalists murdered in this country since democracy was restored in 1986. The list has grown so long it’s hard to keep count and the Philippines cannot be dislodged from its place of dishonor as the most "murderous" country in the world for journalists.

In a number of the attacks, politicians are suspected to be the brains. The truth cannot be established because no political kingpin has been arrested for the murder of a journalist. Though proof is lacking, the suspected involvement of politicians in the killings of media members is seen as one of the biggest reasons for the failure to solve the murders. These politicians operate like warlords in their bailiwicks, controlling the local criminal justice system and therefore free to literally get away with murder.

The violence tends to escalate during an election year, when politicians fight to remain in power. Journalists become more vulnerable to attacks during election season, when politicians believe the best way to bury negative publicity is by burying the messenger along with the bad news.

As in murder cases involving leftist activists and legal professionals, the killings of journalists continue with impunity because few cases are being solved and the murderers punished. Until authorities do more to show that one cannot get away with murder in this country, journalists will continue to be sitting ducks.