EDITORIAL - Arrest them

Just over a month after 30 media members were brutally murdered in Maguindanao as they were covering an election-related event, another journalist was shot, this time in Ilocos Sur.

Fortunately, Eugene Paet, an anchorman of “Commando Radyo” dwRS, survived and is in stable condition in a hospital. Paet was on his way home from the radio station Thursday night when two men on a motorcycle pulled up and shot him along the national highway in Bantay town, just a few meters away from the provincial police office at Camp President Elpidio Quirino. Investigators are still trying to determine if the attack was work-related, and said the assailants appeared to be hired guns.

The only way to determine the motive is to catch the gunmen, which has not happened in many of the attacks on journalists. The failure to arrest the perpetrators, particularly the brains, in the attacks on journalists has created a culture of impunity that guarantees more attacks. The massacre in Maguindanao, because of the magnitude of the atrocity, at least compelled authorities to go after the warlords of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao who were tagged by the victims’ relatives as the principal suspects.

Even before the Maguindanao massacre, the Philippines was already classified by international media groups as the most “murderous” and one of the most dangerous places in the world for media workers. The restoration of democracy in 1986 did not end the violence against journalists, which often escalates during election season. Politicians, used to eliminating their rivals permanently, have no compunction about doing the same to pesky journalists. The Ampatuans who stand accused of perpetrating the Maguindanao massacre simply raised the impunity to a degree that could not be ignored by their allies in the Arroyo administration.

Apart from influential politicians and security officials, influential criminals including gambling lords, smugglers and drug dealers have also been linked to attacks on media workers. Like the public officials who think they control every aspect of the criminal justice system in their turfs, such influential criminals also believe they can get away with intimidating and murdering journalists.

The only way to end the impunity is by catching the perpetrators, whether or not the victim survived. Those who shot Eugene Paet must be caught and made to pay for their crime.