EDITORIAL - Seventh in impunity

Just days before the world marked International Day to End Impunity for Crimes Against Journalists, another media worker was shot dead right inside his home in Bansalan, Davao del Sur.

Online reporter and radio broadcaster Orlando “Dondon” Dinoy was preparing a meal in his apartment last Saturday when he heard a man calling at the gate. Probers said the man shot him but missed as Dinoy ran into the apartment. The gunman followed and riddled Dinoy with bullets.

A police task force has been formed to find the gunman. Whether the task force can give justice to Dinoy and his bereaved relatives remains to be seen. In the latest Global Impunity Index drawn up by the New York-based Community to Protect Journalists, the Philippines ranked seventh among the worst countries in terms of unsolved murders of media workers.

It was an improvement from the Philippines’ consistent ranking among the five worst countries for unsolved journalist killings. But this was only because this year, the Maguindanao massacre on Nov. 23, 2009, wherein 32 of the 58 victims were media workers, no longer fell within the 10-year time frame used by the CPJ for calculating impunity.

Even with the Maguindanao massacre no longer factored in, the CPJ still counted 13 unsolved journalist killings in the Philippines between Sept. 1, 2011 and Aug. 31 this year.

The Philippines is now ranked behind Somalia, where 25 unsolved murders of journalists have been recorded; Syria, Iraq, South Sudan, Afghanistan and Mexico. Others in the worst list are Brazil, Pakistan, Russia, Bangladesh and India.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization counts more than 1,200 journalists murdered in the line of their work between 2006 and 2020. UNESCO estimates that 90 percent of the murders are unresolved. This breeds impunity, which leads to more killings.

Apart from killings, UNESCO noted other threats faced by media workers worldwide, including kidnapping, torture, physical attacks, and threats and insults made online particularly against women journalists.

Even in the middle of a deadly pandemic, the attacks on journalists in the Philippines continued. Among the unresolved murders, as recorded by the CPJ, were those of broadcasters Virgilio Maganes on Sept. 14, 2020 and Jobert Bercasio two months later on Nov. 10. The killing of Dinoy should not go the same way.