EDITORIAL - Another needless death

Days earlier, the newspapers reported that the year 2007 was about to pass into history without a single journalist killed in the line of duty in the Philippines. But before anyone could start celebrating, along came some bad news from Davao City.

Fernando Lintuan, a hard-hitting radio commentator in that city, was killed by a lone gunman on a motorcycle, the day before Christmas, during which, in the traditional midnight Mass, the pope called for peace from the Vatican.

What a big spoiler the murder was, both for the expected clean slate the Philippines was supposed to achieve, at least in terms of journalist killings was concerned, and in keeping with the papal message.

In a larger sense, all killings are senseless, since life, no matter how small or miserable, is still always worth living. But when it is journalists who are getting killed, the more the senselessness becomes palpable.

Journalists are, by and large, unarmed civilians who are merely imbued with a great deal of civic duty. There are, of course, a lot of failures and shortcomings in the pursuit of such duty, but they are failures and shortcomings that cannot be rectified by murder.

The only thing that can be achieved by the murder of journalists is to silence them. But it is a silence that will only be temporary, as there will always be others who will take up the cudgels for the fallen to continue the fight, which is often no more than a search for truth.

But then truth often hurts. And there are those who, unable to withstand the pain, may resort to means that, while criminal, are indeed effective and immediate, even if only temporary.

There will always be killing of journalists, but more so in today’s world where human life is increasingly getting cheapened by a breakdown of morals. Still it is an expectation that is worrisome, because the journalist remains simply the messenger, not the message.