EDITORIAL - Another killing

Last month, one of the questions asked of President Aquino by foreign journalists who covered the Manila visit of US President Barack Obama was about the high incidence of media killings in this country.

President Aquino was not quite forthright in his answer, pointing to the arrest and prosecution of dozens of suspects in connection with media killings. Most of those suspects, however, were indicted in connection with only one case: the 2009 Maguindanao massacre. The majority of cases since 1986 remain unsolved.

Obama visited Manila less than three weeks after a female tabloid reporter was shot dead in front of her house in Cavite. Before Rubylita Garcia died in a hospital, she pointed to a local police chief as the likely brains behind the attack.

Last Friday, a Digos City broadcaster became the 28th journalist to be murdered under the watch of President Aquino. Organized crime rings are being eyed in the fatal shooting of Samuel Oliverio, a blocktimer of Radio Ukay.

Journalists’ groups have lamented that a police task force will likely be formed to go after Oliverio’s killers, after which the investigation will sputter and die down. The case will then gather dust, like most of the murder cases targeting journalists since democracy was restored in 1986.

The failure to bring murderers to justice, as many quarters have pointed out over and over, has bred impunity and guaranteed more attacks on journalists. The theory is that many of the killings are ordered by influential local politicians who control those in charge of the criminal justice system in their turfs, from the police to prosecutors and judges. In several cases, police and military officers are suspected to be the culprits.

But police also fail to catch murderers who are ordinary criminals. Oliverio was reportedly critical of gambling and illegal drug operations in Digos. Unless law enforcers in the city are on the payroll of organized crime rings, nothing should stop the cops from going after the suspected murderers. Getting those responsible for media killings should not become just a tired refrain in this government.