Loren says: Police, not legislation, can protect journalists

Opposition senatorial candidate Loren Legarda admitted that even if elected to the Senate again, she can not guarantee that a piece of legislation can protect the members of media from getting killed.

Legarda, a journalist herself, said the media killings entail swift police action and investigation more than just legislation.

Killings of journalists have been going on for so long and it has not been stopped, this is not because of the absence of legislation but rather the laxity of law enforcement, said Legarda.

"I don't think we have to wait for the Senate to enact a law," Legarda said, as she blamed laxity of the police over the continuous killings of journalists in the country.

The International Federation of Journalist recently reported that 13 members of the media have been murdered in the Philippines last year.

IFJ secretary general Aidan White, in his report posted at the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism blog, said that since President Gloria Arroyo came to power in 2001, a total of 49 journalists have already been murdered.

This figure surpassed the recorded media killings during the martial law regime of former dictator Ferdinand Marcos, said White in his blog.

This also makes the Philippines the most dangerous place in the world for journalists, second to war-torn Iraq, where 68 media personnel were killed last year and brought to 170 the total number of murdered journalists since the US invasion began in April 2003.

In a separate study, the Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility listed 61 journalists in the Philippines who were allegedly killed in the line of duty since 1986, and 31 of them were murdered since 2001.

The PCIJ report said the killings have steadily eroded the Philippine press' reputation for freedom causing its rank, in the press freedom index of the Reporters Without Borders, to slide from 139th in 2005 to 142nd among 200 countries in 2006.

In 2002, the Philippines was ranked 89th. - Fred P. Languido