MANILA – A government task force aims to make the Philippines safer for journalists by 2020.
The Presidential Task Force on Media Security targets to delist the Philippines from the Global Impunity Index of the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists.
“This is our vision in 2020,” said the task force’s executive director, Joel Sy Egco. “We are making an urgent appeal to delist the country from the list of the most dangerous places in the world for journalists.”
“Failure is not option in this campaign,” he stressed.
President Rodrigo Duterte signed Administrative Order No. 1 creating the task force in October 2016.
The task force has since solved five media killings, bringing the total solved cases to eight. These data were included in the task force’s report to the CPJ, said Egco, a former media man.
The task force held a seminar on its operational guidelines and introduction of protocols last Friday in Greenhills, San Juan.
Speaking to the attendees – the press, police and prosecutors – Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra urged the task force’s agents and law enforcers to go after perpetrators of media killings.
“Arrest them, and I will send them to jail,” stressed Guevarra, also the task force chairman.
Egco said they plan to hold more seminars among law enforcers and the general public, especially in Visayas and Mindanao, to explain the work and functions of the task force.
“We have prepared at least seven seminars throughout the country,” he said.
“We want the Filipino people and the world to know that the Duterte administration is doing its best to address media killings and harassments,” he added.
The Philippines ranked fourth in the CPJ’s Global Impunity Index in 2016 and dropped to fifth the following year.
The CPJ attributed the country’s improved ranking to the creation of the Presidential Task Force on Media Security. (PNA)
