Re-visiting the culture of impunity

Unfortunately, the campaign to end impunity reveals also the lack of understanding about impunity. The discourse latches on the continuing violations, the repetition of all kinds of crime “with impunity”—forgetting that reason for the cycle of criminality is the failure to punish.

We engage different groups and associations so they can be part of the effort to address impunity. We conduct campaigns and undertake continuing advocacy through forums and discussions. But in the end, it is the state that holds the power to end impunity and get down to the business of punishing the guilty.

The campaign to name November 23 as the International Day to End Impunity is in the right direction. Such international dates usually carry the will of the international community, including governments and their agencies, commitment to work on one or another issue or cause. Recall the global campaigns on women and gender equality, the protection of children and human trafficking.

The killing of journalists in the Philippines became a central concern for the Center for Media Freedom & Responsibility (CMFR) since the early 1990s when international media watchdogs such as then newly formed Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) began reporting on number of Filipino journalists killed since 1986.

These reports marred the record for the reformist administration of President Corazon Aquino. We were visited then by researchers and reporters asking us to explain why so many working in the free media were being killed. In 1991, the total number cited was 32 (of which, 22 were work-related).

The serial inquiry set us off on a systematic program to analyze the problem. It has resulted in a methodology and a framework of analysis to suggest program actions. The CMFR database lies at the heart of a larger program undertaken in 2003 by the Freedom Fund for Filipino Journalists, Inc. (FFFJ)—a network of Philippine news and media-orientated organizations that responds to each reported murder with a CMFR case study, a fact-finding mission when necessary, and an emergency fund and humanitarian assistance to victim’s families. The group is also involved in continuing advocacy, holding various campaigns to share information and make the public more aware of what we now call “a culture of impunity.”

The issue of impunity has taken up other global networks working in different parts of the world. Working with international counterparts, we have been able to establish the shared context of violence and criminality affecting not just journalists but other citizens. Media and press freedom advocates have had greater success than others to work for justice for the slain.

In the Philippines, we have gained ten convictions in the ten years since FFFJ’s launching in January 2003. But there have been in that same period of time, 85 journalists and media workers killed. We cannot claim to have even made a dent on the culture of violence and impunity. Sadly, we have not seen the end of these killings and attacks.

Still, the advocacy has gained coherence. When journalists are killed, the killing makes news. Not the same kind of attention has been given to others killed—judges, lawyers, human rights defenders and activists whose deaths tend to be reported only in passing.

In Lima, Peru where the World Movement for Democracy held its bi-annual conference in October, I organized a panel of speakers from Mexico, Colombia, and Pakistan. The national perspectives included the overview from the Philippines. There were differences, but we all agreed on the factors that make up impunity: the weak rule of law; the poor capacity or inclination of the police to investigate, a culture of criminality and violence; and in general, a failure to observe universal conventions to which countries sign.

There are of course varying institutional weaknesses. The criminal justice system seems weakened by the same forces, the political influence that can determine the course of a trial.
Indeed, only the state and its agencies have the capacity to put an end to impunity. The power to punish murder and crime is the state’s alone.

In Bangkok last week, the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Thailand (FCCT) heard Grace Morales, the widow of Rosell Morales who was slain in the Ampatuan massacre and how they have taken up the pieces of their lives, adding on the burden to organize in solidarity against offers to withdraw their complaints against suspects. I provided the broad picture of impunity in the country.

The inevitable question: What is the government doing about the trial? The journalists there remembered how the victory of Benigno S. Aquino III in the polls was heralded as a strong turn for human rights and for justice.

I shared my deep disappointment, and those of my colleagues in this endeavor, especially the families of the slain and the prosecutors who represent them in courts in remote parts of the country. We had asked to meet with government officials, perhaps with the president himself, to share with them our findings and suggest certain actions that might help us all get started on a better defined policy path to end impunity. We know it will not happen overnight. But for about two decades now, we have studied cases so we can think on policy options and possibilities. But only government can make these work.

What could make a difference?

The creation of a national task force made up of media, NGOs, and government officials whose mission is to go where a journalist is killed, eventually, to go where there is any report of an extra-judicial killing. The mission would be to conduct a quick and independent inquiry to determine the facts, to search out the context of the case, and, on the part of the public officials, to command investigative resources so suspects can be arrested, and altogether to assist the local community, especially the families of the slain, to deal with the crisis and to find short- and long-term solutions. Such a mission would also articulate a message that needs to be heard: The President cares and will do something.

We know now, given our experience at media defense, that getting the cases to court is to enter into a kind of limbo of judicial inaction. The rules of the court can be employed and manipulated to delay the course of the trial. Some of these rules need revision. Such a review will scrape off the age old barnacles of a judicial system that seems to exist only for the benefit of lawyers.

The improvement of the Witness Protection Program has been waylaid by bureaucracy. Indeed, it has received more budgetary support under the Aquino administration, but when Senior Prosecutor Leo Dacera succumbed to a heart attack, the program lost the dedication and attention to the welfare of witnesses and their families.

Those are three. These steps will not do everything necessary. But these actions, of even words to their effect, would go a long way to indicate that the Aquino administration will recover from the current inertia and inaction on this issue of human rights.

So maybe, this year, the day’s observance will provoke presidential action.