THE COLLEGE Editors Guild of the Philippines joins the Filipino nation as we remember our departed this All Souls Day.
It is also fitting that such day, November 2, is dedicated as the International Day to End Impunity for Crimes Against Journalists. We henceforth honor our colleagues who have fallen in the line of duty and been denied genuine justice, until this day. Their courage and dedication kept the profession alive amid brazen attacks on its integrity.
Since 1986, 198 journalists have been slain — with a significant number of cases still unresolved as of this writing. We remember Percy Lapid, who bravely hard-lined on critical issues such as the bloody war on drugs, rampant disinformation, red tagging, and the anomalous Sugar Order No. 4.
Lapid is the 198th Filipino journalist killed since 1986, in a nation notorious for being the second worst country for a profession defending freedom of expression and combating disinformation sans genuine protection from attacks and repression.
Moreover, journalists are still persecuted in this country, ironically taunted as a bastion of democracy in the ASEAN Region. Frenchie Mae Cumpio remains behind bars on trumped-up charges as she faithfully dispensed her duties as Percy Lapid did. Perpetrators, masterminds and goons alike, remain unaccountable for their crimes.
The surge of massive disinformation and historical distortion mechanisms also enabled impunity. The Marcos Jr-Duterte regime, who effortlessly won with a machinery of lies and deception, discredited alternative media outfits. Their channels disbanded all efforts to bring forth people’s legitimate calls and issues to light.
Attacks against the campus press were also left unresolved. Hundreds of campus publications stopped operations as their funds were withheld or stolen. Campus journalists were retrenched for writing stories from the ground. Some laid low after intense red tagging or surveillance from state forces.
The repressive education system we are in today alienates the youth from exercising the vital role of the campus press against the culture of impunity. Campus journalists face these tragedies even inside schools, where tolerance is valued over recognition of genuine student concerns, especially on social issues.
Marcos Jr. and his allies designed the current education curriculum for many more students to be discouraged in being future pro-people journalists, thus silencing them in speaking up against attacks on journalists worldwide. Further commercialization in these institutions also conditioned the campus press to vainly uphold ‘fairness’ and ‘political non-intervention’ to keep selfish interests safe and sound.
Now more than ever, the Guild prays for an end to impunity for crimes against journalists, in solidarity with the families and friends of their beloved. No one must be silenced in the struggle for truth. No one must be killed in genuine service of the Filipino masses.
Moreso, we raise our prayers for accountability as we stifle attacks against our line of work. The state must be held responsible for its constitutional mandate to protect and promote freedom of speech and of the press, at all costs.
We also call on all campus journalists, press freedom advocates, and media workers to push back as one. Fighting impunity must start as well at our schools – we must capacitate our fellow youth to strike against impunity as we protect our democratic rights, the same assertion for our right to education!
An attack on one of us is an attack on us all, and we can only fight impunity with stronger collective action with the masses whom we are bound to serve.
Justice for slain journalists! End impunity now! – COLLEGE EDITORS GUILD OF THE PHILIPPINES <cegphils@gmail.com>
