Campus journalists laud decision on Dizon's case, but...

The College Editors Guild of the Philippines, a national alliance of student publications and the national center for the advancement of campus press freedom, welcomes the decision of the court on the murder of Cebuano photojournalist, Allan Dizon.

The closure of the case marks a very good start of the year for Dizon's family and friends. However, the mysteries on the motive of the killer and whether the killing was part of a bigger picture, which predictably, would necessitate a mastermind, were never cleared. We are still left in the dark whether or not the case was work-related, as such, doubts will continue to flourish.

Such doubts are due to the fact that the number of resolved cases like Dizon's is still miniature to the scores of unresolved cases of journalist killings, some even dating more than a decade ago and 39 cases having occurred during Gloria Arroyo's administration.

According to the National Union of Journalists in the Philippines (NUJP), the unabated rise of journalist killings and harassment in the Philippines paints a picture of lawlessness and impunity where being a journalist in the Philippines is one of the most dangerous jobs in the world, second only to war-torn Iraq.

Allan Dizon's case remains to be a small consolation amid the sea of murders flooding us today-journalist killings, Judge Guingoyon's murder, political killings, vigilante killings, among others.

Murders which are not yet possibly in the to-do list of our law enforcement agencies and the criminal justice system considering the pace and effort they have put into the resolution of such heinous crimes.

We therefore would like to challenge our law enforcers to show concerted efforts and muscle to speed up to the rest of the unsolved journalist killings and deliver the same relief as what the family of Dizon has received. This is also a wake-up call to the government which remains to be so inutile in the face of such crimes. Such a scenario has led some media practitioners to give up on the government's handling of journalists' killings and opted to arm themselves for much-needed security. However, we support NUJP's claim that this mentality would only directly legitimize the perpetrators' intent and aggravate the situation.

As the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) and NUJP put it, "The killings of journalists are a symptom of a deeper problem of governance rooted in the failure of the justice system to truly protect the very citizens whose rights and lives it is supposed to defend." Crimes against media practitioners are but the tip of an iceberg. It is not the disease, it is only a symptom.

Cure the disease and the symptom will abate.

Reference:
Karen Papellero,
Coordinator
College Editors Guild of the Philippines
Cebu Chapter