Friday, August 13, 2004 Arroyo orders probe on media killings
MANILA -- President Arroyo ordered Local Government Secretary Angelo Reyes Friday to look into the recent murders of journalists
"If he (Reyes) can do it with kidnappers, he can certainly do something about these killings," Arroyo said during a luncheon meeting with newly organized Kapisanan ng mga Komentarista ng Pilipinas (KKP).
A day earlier, a reporter for a Roman Catholic radio station was found shot dead at his home south of Manila, becoming the sixth journalist to be killed this year, police said.
The National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP) condemned during a forum Friday in Quezon City the "routine assassination of journalists".
In the latest killing, neighbors found the body of Fernando Consignado, 50, in his home in the town of Nagcarlan in Laguna, a police report here said. He had a bullet wound to the head.
Police said Consignado was overheard arguing with an unnamed relative shortly before his body was found.
The Radio Veritas provincial correspondent was the fourth journalist killed in two weeks, and the sixth this year.
On Sunday, radio reporter Jonathan Abayon was shot in the head by an ex-soldier in General Santos City.
Police are investigating all the cases to check if they were work-related.
Consignado is the 45th journalist killed since democracy was restored in the country after the fall of dictator Ferdinand Marcos in 1986.
Condemning the killings, the NUJP said it would ask Congress to look into the failure of police to solve even one of these murder cases.
The NUJP, in a forum at the Balay Kalinaw at the University of the Philippines (UP) in Diliman, Quezon City, said the suspects in majority of the cases were members of the police and the military.
"These are the hardest cases to deal with. We hope this will also address the culture of impunity," said Carlos Conde, NUJP secretary-general.
The NUJP said that instead of arming the media, police should make sure that those behind the killing of journalists are captured and prosecuted.
The Batangas Newswriters Association said it would publish regular updates on the investigation of the murders, that of Arnel Manalo, a dzRH reporter and Bulgar correspondent in particular, while the Kapisanan ng mga Brodkaster sa Pilipinas (KBP) said it would place advertisements about the issue in different television and radio stations.
Luis Teodoro, dean of the U.P. Diliman College of Mass Communication, recommended the holding of a media summit to come up with a unified position and stressed that "the media will not take this sitting down".
The Philippines is considered as among the most dangerous places in the world for the working press, according to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists.
The spate of unsolved murders has forced the national police to ease restrictions on issuing permits to carry firearms to journalists, triggering intense debate in a country where a proliferation of unlicensed guns is blamed for a rise in crime. (JMR/With AFP)
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