EDITORIAL - Eight and counting

Less than a month after a radio commentator was shot dead in front of his daughter, another radio broadcaster has been gunned down. Leo Luna Mila was on his way home Tuesday night in San Roque, Northern Samar when he was waylaid. He died from gunshots to the head and body.

Mila, 35, hosted a regular program in Radyo Natin, an affiliate of the Manila Broadcasting Co.’s dzRH. He was the eighth journalist to be murdered this year. Last Nov. 17, Ariceo Padrigao, a block-timer of dxRS Radyo Natin, was shot dead shortly after dropping off his daughter in front of the Bukidnon State University in Gingoog City, Misamis Oriental.

Two men arrested and indicted for Padrigao’s murder have been tagged as hired guns. The mastermind is unidentified, which makes this an unsolved crime, as are most of the more than 50 fatal attacks on journalists since President Arroyo assumed office in January 2001. Mila’s case may go the same way. Police investigators are focusing on the New People’s Army as the culprit, noting that Mila had been a vocal critic of the NPA’s collection of “revolutionary taxes” in the province. NPA assassins, arsonists and extortionists are rarely caught.

The focus on the armed wing of the communist party may be valid. The NPA has deteriorated into the largest and most organized armed group specializing in extortion in this country. But first the suspicion must be justified, with the arrest of Mila’s killers. His murder prompted the International Federation of Journalists to classify the Philippines as the most dangerous country in the Asia-Pacific for media members. With eight journalists dead, the casualty count this year is approaching the record high before the United Nations sent a special rapporteur on human rights to Manila to look into the spate of unexplained killings and disappearances.

The visit, and the resulting report that was submitted to the UN, must have contributed to a dramatic drop in the number of disappearances and deadly attacks on journalists and left-wing militants last year. But the rate of arrests and convictions remained dismal. Until this problem is addressed, journalists will continue to be targeted with impunity.