BY GLENDA TAYONA and MAE SINGUAY
ILOILO City – A Manila-based journalist has been recognized by an international press freedom and information advocacy organization “for resisting pressure (financial, political, economic, or religious) or because of the values and rules that enable them to resist.”
Inday Espina-Varona, who hails from Bacolod City but has roots in Iloilo City, bagged the Prize for Independence from Reporters Sans Frontières (RSF, or Reporters Without Borders) during the 2018 Press Freedom Awards in London.
In her acceptance speech, Varona dedicated the recognition to colleagues, including those who have been killed or are facing threats.
“I share this with embattled Philippine colleagues: the 185 killed since the 1986 restoration of a fragile, perpetually threatened democracy, 12 of them in the first two years of President Rodrigo Duterte’s rule,” she said in a ceremony Friday (Manila time) at the Getty Images Gallery.
“This is also for colleagues who face death threats, vilification campaigns, and revocation of access to coverage, for doing what journalists are supposed to do – questioning official acts and claims, especially on issues of human rights and corruption,” she added.
RSF secretary-general Christophe Deloire said this year’s nominees “reflect the challenges faced by brave journalists across the world.”
“[They] courageously fight back against forces that would prefer journalism didn’t exist, from online mobs to organized crime and authoritarian governments,” he said.
Varona, daughter of the late Bacolod-based journalist Rolly Espina, bested three other nominees – Ghanian undercover reporter Anas Aremeyaw Anas, Péter Pető of Hungarian news website 24.hu, and Pakistani journalist Taha Siddiqui.
“If I am independent, it is because there are colleagues and fellow citizens who fight for rights and freedoms, who refuse to be silent in the face of thousands of murders and other injustices, who fight on despite threats, arrests and torture, whose words and deeds speak from beyond the grave,” said Varona, whose great-grandfather was the youngest brother of Ilonggo journalist and national hero Graciano Lopez Jaena.
Varona cited other threats to journalists, including letting them become witnesses to cases filed by the police in light of raids and the “proposed draconian changes to the law that would make terrorists” of government dissenters.
“Filipino journalists are brave because we come after the many who showed courage over hundreds of years. And we are brave because our people are brave. We cannot let them down,” she said.
“I am proud of Philippine journalism, of colleagues who probe not only the effects of growing autocracy, but also the roots of social woes that allowed a false messiah to bedazzle our people,” she added.
Varona was a former national chairperson of the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines, a Marshall McLuhan and Stanford journalism fellow, and a Jaime V. Ongpin awardee.
She was one of the movers of #BabaeAko, a social media campaign (in response to President Rodrigo Duterte’s misogynistic comments on women) recognized as among TIME magazine’s most influential online platforms.
Currently she is a contributing editor for ABS-CBN News and a writer for UCAN News. She previously held top editorial positions in The Manila Times and the Philippines Graphic magazine.
The NUJP lauded Varona for the recognition.
“We thank Inday for recognizing the role independent Filipino journalists have played in defending and advancing our people’s rights and liberties and defending democracy despite the dangers they face, not least from the very forces supposedly sworn to protect and preserve our freedoms,” said NUJP chairman Nonoy Espina, her brother./PN
