FROM a political leader who won on a platform of killing criminals and crime suspects, President-elect Rodrigo Duterte’s statement about killing corrupt journalists should not shock us anymore.
Advertisement
Seven journalists were killed in the Philippines in 2015, according to the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ).
The Philippines is one of the most unsafe nations in the world for journalists, with 176 murdered since a chaotic and corruption-plagued democracy replaced the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos three decades ago.
Duterte’s remark, she said, was “alarming because without due process, it casts absolute judgment on all murdered journalists including those who were killed for telling the truth”.
Panelo also said that Duterte only meant that a journalist is killed not because of profession but because of what he has done. “Basta [enough] corruption, I will be harsh”, he said, asserting that his election was a message loud and clear from the Philippine people: “They do not want their money put inside the pockets of workers of government”.
“Just because you’re a journalist you are not exempted from assassination if you’re a son of a bitch”, Rodrigo Duterte said Tuesday, Agence France-Presse reported. “Freedom of expression can not help you if you have done something wrong”, he added.
Mr. Duterte in his freewheeling remarks at his press conference hinted that journalists who were getting killed were corrupt.
“This is one of the most outrageous statements we have ever heard from a president in the Philippines”. He urged media groups to pursue lawsuits and to boycott the Duterte administration’s news conferences until a public apology is made. “We strongly urge him to retract his comments and to signal that he intends to protect, not target, the press”.
“Nothing justifies the murder of journalists”, chair Ryan Rosuaro said in a statement. “And if they will offer a violent resistance, and thereby placing the lives of the law enforcers and the military whom I would task for a job to do, I will simply say, ‘Kill them all and end the problem'”.
In its 2016 World Press Freedom Index, RSF ranked the Philippines 138th out of 180 countries. “Then again, that’s Mayor Duterte”, Tima said.
An attack considered the single deadliest event for journalists in history occurred in the Philippines in 2009, when assailants in southern Maguindanao province killed 58 people – among them 34 reporters – headed to file a certificate of candidacy for a local mayor. “That person is killed because he has done something wrong to another fellow man”, spokesman Salvador S. Panelo, who served as counsel for Andal S. Ampatuan, Jr., told reporters in Davao City as aired on ANC.
Advertisement
Also among those whose death came up in the cabinet appointment press conference were journalists.
