The statistics are rising. From the time she assumed office in 2001 up to the present, there has been 64 extra-judicial killing of journalists already. The Arroyo administration it seems is racing to break the record of Ferdinand Marcos in terms of media people being killed, and of unsolved crimes.
It is easy to understand why many were killed during the Martial Law regime. To elaborate on the reasons is stating the obvious. But in an atmosphere of democracy which we as a people regained after the EDSA revolution in 1986, it is difficult to comprehend, must more accept, why the killing of messengers go unabated.
Incomprehensible still is why, despite the many witnesses, we have yet to forever lock in jail the perpetrators. The government cannot turn its eyes away from the assassinations. In the pole of responsibility, the buck stops at the top – the president.
Aside from Iraq and Afghanistan, the Philippines is a dangerous place for journalists to live. This notoriety of killing the messengers go along with another record of sorts: Philippines is gunning to top the world record in corruption.
Again, record of cronyism and corruption during the Marcos regime, is equaled, if not surpassed, under the Arroyo administration.
If you put the two records together – corruption and extra-judicial killing of journalists – you get to understand the entire picture. You get to understand why in terms of the notorious records, Ferdinand Marcos has a rival in Gloria Arroyo.
The message is corruption. In our society, the messenger is the journalist. The more the message gets ugly the more journalists get killed.
Last November 17, 2008, radio commentator Arecio Padrigao from Gingoog City was gunned down in broad daylight. His kid witnessed the killing. On January 22, 2009, in Cotabato city, another journalist, Badrodin Abas died of gunshot wound. Barely a month later, on February 23, 2009, two days before the EDSA revolution anniversary, radio commentator Ernie Rollin was shot to death in Oroquieta City. Her lived-in partner Ligaya witnessed the incident. Ligaya recalled: “When Ernie was lying already in the ground, the assailant pumped into his head the fatal fourth bullet”. Chilling words.
Aside from their common profession, these journalists were killed when they tackled the common message: corruption.
Where there is rampant corruption, you could hear, read, and see journalists exposing the issue. That is their function in democracy. When the three branches of government fail to check each other, the fourth estate, is the last citadel through which the sentiments of the people are crystallized, and calls for reform take shape.
No wonder that the journalist lives a riskier life when corruption gets uglier.
Those hit by the exposes either try to silence the media by filing libel cases, or worse, hire hitmen, to forever mute the media. But they are darn wrong.
These perpetrators do not read their history, or having read them, fail to grasp the lesson. The lesson is clear. You can kill the messenger but you cannot kill the message.
Marcos tried to silence the messengers of truth, freedom and democracy. Ninoy Aquino was jailed, and having failed to silence him, he was assassinated. Evelio Javier died in the assailant’s hands. Lean Alejandro who championed the student’s rights was also killed. Marcos had tried all the menus to silence the people. Yet, when the messengers died, the message was carried on not my individuals, but by the Filipinos as a race. The rest was history.
You kill Padrigao, Abas, Rollin and other journalists, but as long as the message remains, someone else will take the cudgel and expose the truth. Listen to the successor of Ernie Rollin in his program in DxSY-AM. “You have killed Ernie, but you have to kill me too because I will continue exposing corruption in the government.” These are words of anguish and at the same defiance of human tragedy if only to proclaim the truth.
The perpetrators have not learned another lesson in our recent history: you kill media men, and like sticks forming a broom, they unite, and their exposes more intense and daring.
You do not kill media men. That is a wrong route. Get your act together. Get rid of corruption. Imprison Garci, Jocjoc Volante, and Jose Pidal. If there is no message of corruption, there is no need to kill the messenger because there will be none in the first place.
