VERA FILES has belied claims made by Communications Secretary Martin Andanar who said in radio interview that the Philippines was no longer among the world’s most dangerous countries for journalists due to the “swift resolution” of the Maguindanao massacre in 2019, which he said, formed part of President Rodrigo Duterte’s legacy.
The
massacre, the single
deadliest attack against
journalists, claimed the lives of 58 people, including 32 media workers in
2009.
The nonstock, nonprofit independent media organization said
Andanar’s statement was inaccurate on two counts. It cited the Reporters
Without Borders (RSF) barometer on press freedom
violations which shows that the Philippines has fallen in and out of the top
five deadliest countries for journalists from 2009 to 2020. Its barometer
covers January 1 to December 31 of each reporting year, explained RSF in an
October 22 email to VERA Files Fact Check.
Further
debunking Andanar’s claim, the country ranked higher in 2019 (tied
at third with three others) — when the Maguindanao massacre conviction was
handed down — than the previous
year (tied at sixth with four others), though the tally of killings
was the same (three).
In
2020, the Philippines moved down from fifth to seventh worst country worldwide
in the Committee to Protect Journalists’ (CPJ) Global
Impunity Index. VERA Files said this was because the Maguindanao massacre “no
longer fell into the 10-year time frame for calculating the index.”
The
CPJ also said the landmark conviction in December 2019 of several perpetrators
of the Maguindanao massacre changed the status of the case to partial
impunity from full impunity. For this reason, the decade-long case “would
no longer have figured into the index
calculation regardless of the time frame.”
The CPJ noted in its 2020 report, however, that while the Philippines is now the “seventh worst” country, it still has 11 unsolved murders of journalists in the current 10-year index period (2010-2020). (Mindanao Examiner)
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