The reign of impunity

THE AMPATUAN Massacre of November 23, 2009 claimed the lives of 58 men and women, 32 of whom were journalists and media workers. It was the worst attack on the press in Philippine history, and one of the worst cases of political killings in the country since 1946, when the Philippines regained its independence.

But except for the numbers, neither the political violence nor the attack on the press it unleashed  was unique in the Philippine experience. Violence has been among the persistent characteristics of Philippine politics and elections, and being harassed, threatened, and imprisoned among the dangers of the journalistic enterprise since the Spanish colonial period. Neither has violence or the threat of it been solely the lot and peril of the press and of  political partisans, the advocates of change having been, and being, similarly at risk.

Compared to being sued for libel or even thrown into prison, the murder of journalists is the ultimate expression of the hostility to the press of those who resent either criticism or exposure. Such murders have occurred before 1986. But the surge in the number of killings of journalists the country has witnessed since the end of dictatorship that year is a relatively recent development.

Before and during the Marcos dictatorship (1972 – 1986), the killing of journalists occurred rarely—prior to 1972, perhaps because murder was not yet thought to be a solution to a bad press; and, during the Marcos years, because the journalists who were above ground were either too uncritical for the State to bother with, or, if they mattered enough to be silenced, were easily arrested and imprisoned.

Arbitrary arrest and imprisonment was no longer possible after 1986, when the institutions of liberal democracy, among them the Bill of Rights, were restored and  press censorship lifted. But Pete Mabazza—a correspondent of the Manila Bulletin and the first journalist killed after the Marcos period—was not deliberately targeted, but was an unintended casualty of an NPA ambush on the military convoy which he and photographer Wilfredo Vicoy, who died a day later, had joined.

Subsequent attacks against journalists were distinguished by their being deliberately targeted for the purpose of silencing them because they had antagonized either local officials or criminal syndicates. From a handful of cases in the succeeding decade, the killings escalated enough after the late 1980s to alarm international press freedom watch groups, which, among other descriptions, characterized the Philippines as the most dangerous place in the world as well as the most murderous in which to practice journalism.

Both descriptions turned out to be prematurely optimistic—but predictive of November 23, 2009. The Ampatuan Massacre has since been designated the International Day to End Impunity, initially by the international free expression and press freedom groups, and, perhaps this year, by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

As the killing of journalists escalated from the years 2001 to 2009, so did the killing of political and social activists, both occurring, perhaps coincidentally, during the problematic watch of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. The coincidence, if coincidence it indeed was, was perversely logical, the press being indispensable to the exposure of the political and social problems that have plagued the country for at least three centuries, and the advocacy and labor of activists being necessary in the search for their solutions.

Equally logical has been murder as the response of the subjects of both press and activist scrutiny and exposure, and, as a consequence, the metastasizing of impunity in much of Philippine society.

The persistence of impunity, though all too evident in the murder of journalists and the assassination, usually by State forces, of environmentalists, anti-mining activists, human rights defenders, priests involved in community advocacies, reformist local officials, judges and lawyers, and, in general, political and social activists, is less evident in, among others, the all too frequent cases of those who murder with the certainty of getting away with it; of foreign companies that dump wastes in Philippine waters who claim immunity from Philippines laws; and of  multi-billion pyramid and Ponzi scheme scammers who, after destroying thousands of lives, manage to leave the country so they can enjoy their plunder in other climes.

Together with the killing of journalists and of political and social activists, these unremarked instances of impunity add up to a state of non-accountability—indeed to a culture of impunity—in a society in which State impotence in protecting the right to life, and to free expression and advocacy, and State complicity in extra-judicial killings, have become the most important factors in the making of the Philippines into one of the most dangerous places in the world not only for journalists but for nearly everyone else.

The credible resolution of the Ampatuan Massacre cases within a reasonable period should be,  in this context, a State priority. The fact that it isn’t bodes ill not only for press freedom—without such a resolution the killing of journalists will certainly continue—but also for the prospects of change in a society that has long needed it.