EDITORIAL - A persistent problem

This is a problem that refuses to go away. Last Monday morning, radio commentator Ariceo Padrigao was shot dead moments after he had dropped off his daughter at the Bukidnon State University in Gingoog City, Misamis Oriental. The two gunmen fled on a motorcycle as Padrigao lay dying from two gunshots to the jaw.

Padrigao, a so-called block-timer in Gingoog local station dxRS Radyo Natin, was the seventh journalist murdered this year. The figure is double the number of journalists killed in 2007, though investigators say not all the murders were work-related. In 2006, at the height of impunity in murdering journalists, 12 were killed, earning for the country the unwanted distinction of being the most “murderous” country in the world for media members, and the second most dangerous after Iraq.

Amid the outcry over the murders and forced disappearances of journalists and left-wing militants, most of which went unsolved, the United Nations sent a special rapporteur to Manila. After meeting with various sectors and government officials, Philip Alston concluded that the military, accused of extrajudicial killings, was in a state of “almost complete denial” of the murders and disappearances. Following the submission of his report to the UN, there was a marked drop in the number of attacks, with only three journalists murdered last year.

As the murder of Padrigao shows, however, the problem persists. Though he paid for radio time to air his views, Padrigao was said to be a hard-hitting commentator, tackling corruption in local affairs. A task force formed specifically to address attacks on journalists is still considering whether its mandate covers block-timers and whether Padrigao’s killing was work-related. As of yesterday the police could not yet say if it had leads on the case.

Whether or not the murder was work-related, Padrigao’s killers must be caught, together with whoever might have ordered the hit. Every unsolved murder emboldens others to commit the same crime, thinking that they can get away with it. This culture of impunity cannot be allowed to take root.