CMFR STATEMENT:

An urgent call: Stop the Arroyo regime’s assault on press freedom

THE CENTER for Media Freedom and Responsibility (CMFR) calls on all media organizations, advocacy groups, lawyers’ organizations, and human rights groups to join together to stop the Arroyo regime’s assault on press freedom. CMFR is issuing this urgent appeal to preempt further government action against journalists that could severely cripple press freedom in the Philippines and destroy the very foundation of Philippine democracy.

The two latest incidents in this assault are extremely serious in their implications. In what can only be described as a blatant attempt to intimidate the press, a team of policemen tried last Nov.13 to arrest Mia Gonzalez, a BusinessMirror newspaper reporter and Newsbreak magazine contributor, right in the Malacañang press working area itself.

Gonzalez, one of the 43 journalists sued for libel by the president’s husband, Jose Miguel Arroyo, would have been arrested in the presence of several of her colleagues. Gonzalez was not in the vicinity at the time and thus escaped arrest. But the message of intimidation sent by the police was clear enough, and duly noted by journalists covering Malacañang.

This latest attempt to bully the press came on the heels of a death threat against Malaya newspaper columnist Ellen Tordesillas, again one of the 43 journalists Mr. Arroyo has sued for libel. The threat against Ms. Tordesillas could be the prelude to the escalation of press intimidation, including assassinations and attempts on journalists’ lives that have so far been limited to the community press in the provinces, where 62 journalists have been killed “in the line of duty” since 1986.

Both incidents indeed occurred in the context of the continuing harassment, intimidation, and assassination of journalists which have shattered the Philippine press’s reputation for autonomy and placed the country at 142nd place among 168 countries in the Reporters Sans Frontiéres Press Freedom Index, and earned it a reputation as “the most murderous place in the world” for journalists and as the second most dangerous country for journalists after Iraq.

Earlier last October, seven editors and reporters of Malaya and a former senator, again among the 43 men and women Mr. Arroyo has sued, were ordered arrested by a Manila regional trial court judge. They managed to post bail and avoided a night in jail. In a number of instances, arrest warrants have been served in the late afternoon or early evening of Fridays with the obvious intention of forcing the respondents to spend the weekend in jail. Philippine courts have also tended to hand out harsh prison terms. They have also awarded excessive and crippling damages to complainants in civil suits. Because it serves as a tool for political harassment of journalists, the libel law which criminalizes defamation continues to be a grave threat to Filipino journalists, press freedom, and democracy.

An attack on press freedom is an attack on democracy, a free press being indispensable to the discussion of public issues. It is no coincidence that Mr. Arroyo’s offensive against the media is occurring in the larger context of the Arroyo regime’s multi-pronged campaign to silence opposition to it, which has included violence against activists and the suspension of local officials allied with the opposition.

CMFR cannot overemphasize the urgency of the present situation, and urges all groups that value press freedom and democracy not only to make their voices heard in vigorous protest, but also to alert their international networks to the urgent need to restrain the authoritarian impulse driving the Arroyo regime campaign against the Philippine press and other sectors critical of it.

Organizations supporting this statement:
Southeast Asian Press Alliance
Center for Community Journalism and Development
Philippine Press Institute
Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism

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