CPJ: Aquino needs fresh tactics vs media killings

With one journalist killed, one wounded and at least two being threatened under the new administration, President Benigno Aquino III may need fresh tactics to stop the impunity that has led to media killings. New York-based media watchdog group Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) on Saturday lamented that the "political culture of widespread violence and little law enforcement" has not changed with Aquino's entry. "It’s too soon to expect a turnaround in the Philippines’ miserable record of attacks on journalists. President Benigno Aquino was sworn in just two weeks ago. The problem of unprosecuted journalist murders—the Philippines ranks third on CPJ’s Impunity Index—is embedded in a political culture of widespread violence and little law enforcement. That hasn’t changed," CPJ Asia Program Coordinator Bob Dietz said in an entry on his blog. "It’s too soon to expect change, but it’s not too soon to see new tactics being put in place to counter the violence directed against journalists," he added. Last July 3, Radyo Natin Tabuk reporter-commentator Jose Daguio, 75, was shot dead in his home in Tabuk in Kalinga province - the first media fatality under Aquino's watch. A week later, Bicol broadcaster Miguel Belen was shot and wounded in an ambush. On the other hand, CPJ noted at least two journalists based in Negros Occidental received death threats via text messages. Larry Trinidad of Radio Mindanao Network said he received a text message last Monday claiming he will be killed by Saturday. “Tumba ka na sa Sabado. Ikaw Himuon Sample sa media killing (You will be dead by Saturday, you will be an example of the media killing)," the message read. He said that before he received the threat, his friend got other text messages to stop implicating the Army in the death of Bayan Muna member Benjamin Bayles. Bayles died after two men shot him in Himamaylan town in Negros Occidental last month. Jaime Lim, 41, Negros Bureau chief of a regional newspaper, reported to local police he got a death threat through a text message from an unknown sender. Lim said that he was at their office at Rosario-Jasmin streets at about 4:29 p.m. Monday when he received the text message that reads “Tumba ka na, ikaw himuin sample sa media killing (You will be dead, you will be an example of the media killing)." Bacolod City Police officer-in-charge Senior Superintendent Celestino Guara advised those who have death threats not to be complacent and go home directly after work so as not to give opportunities to those who have bad intentions against them. "Although he brings to office a widely supported reform agenda (Aquino won 78 percent of voting precincts), the new president must confront a pervasive culture of violence and lawlessness—one in which police tell journalists to carry weapons if they want to be safe. There have been many pledges from Aquino before and after he was sworn in about the attacks on journalists and the lack of prosecutions in virtually all of the cases. If he is to begin to turn around that culture, the president should start soon, with a full plan aimed at addressing a system that allows citizens, including journalists, to be threatened with impunity," Dietz said. — LBG, GMANews.TV