ON THE EVE OF THE 4th anniversary of the Maguindanao Massacre, Presidential spokesman Herminio Coloma Jr. downplayed statistics from media groups that showed that media killings had grown worse during the administration of President Benigno S. Aquino Jr.
In a briefing for Malacanang reporters, Coloma said that some of those included in the lists compiled by the Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility (CMFR) and the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP) were not bona fide mediamen.
In fact, Coloma was quoted as saying that if one were to exclude the 32 victims of the Maguindanao Massacre from the count, the Philippines was not that bad in terms of media killings.
Read the Philippine Star report on Coloma’s statement here.
For his remarks, Coloma has earned the ire of the NUJP and other members of the media.
In a statement released Monday, the NUJP said that Coloma’s statement makes it clear just how much importance the Aquino administration gives to justice and human rights – “zilch.”
“Now,through Sec. Sonny Coloma, we have a very clear idea of how much press freedom and justice mean to this administration – zilch,” the NUJP statement said.
“Going by Coloma’s twisted logic, 157 murders less the 32 victims of the massacre give us 125, a trivial figure. It could be that where extrajudicial killing has claimed the lives of hundreds of activists, environmentalists, human rights defenders, indigenous people, lawyers, clerics, religious and many others whose only crime was to speak their minds, their deaths unsolved and those responsible unpunished.”
The NUJP then listed the names of all the 157 victims of media murders, and suggested that Coloma “get in touch with the families of the following, less the Ampatuan 32, and advice them not to fret too much, that their loss and grief are nothing serious.”
Several journalists also took exception to Coloma’s statement and vented their ire in social media.
In a report released by the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism on Thursday, the PCIJ found that media killings in the first 40 months under Aquino had already outpaced the number of media killings for the same period under his predecessor, then President Gloria Arroyo.
Together, the NUJP and CMFR have identified 23 media men killed in the line of duty since President Aquino took office in 2010. In contrast, only 12 mediamen were killed in the first 40 months of President Arroyo.
In interviews done for the PCIJ story, CMFR Deputy Director Luis Teodoro and NUJP chairperson Rowena Paraan said that both groups have screened out other possible motives for the murders. Otherwise, they said, the numbers would be much higher.
Paraan said her group investigates each murder case. If there is no indication of any motive other than one that is job-related, then the NUJP classifies the killing as a work-related incident.
Teodoro said that authorities may be sticking to a definition that is too narrow.
“Whether you call it EJK (extra judicial killing) or media killing, ang punto is may pinapatay, at ang pagpatay ay nagpapatuloy,” Paraan said. “I consider it media killing pag walang pruweba na he was killed otherwise, kung pinatay at walang malinaw na categorization to identify bakit pinatay siya.”
On the other hand, Paraan said that authorities seemed inclined to automatically ascribe other motives to the murder every time a media person is killed. “Ang knee-jerk statement nila is (to say that the motive is a) love triangle, or nakipagaway sa kapitbahay, o personal na away,” Paraan said. Sometimes, Paraan said, police announce this hasty conclusion even before the end of the day.
Interestingly, Coloma said that the number of media victims would not be alarming if one does not consider the 32 murders that were the result of the 2009 Maguindanao Massacre.
In its story on the media murders under President Aquino, the PCIJ pointed out that if one were to exclude the media murder victims from the list, the average number of killings per year under President Aquino would be bigger than those under President Arroyo.
Without the Maguindanao Massacre, the average number of media killings under Arroyo would only be five a year, compared to more than six under President Aquino. Analysts sometimes exclude the Maguindanao Massacre from the computation of the average because the massacre was considered sui generis, or a very unique and extreme case that skew the average.