Violence of Duterte’s drugs war being unleashed on reporters
The National Union of Journalists deplores the glaring impunity with which the Philippine security forces increasingly violate people’s basic rights.
What happened at the US Embassy in Manila on October 19 – when a weaponised police van was used against anti-US protesters – was a clear case of violence done by the state against its own people.
And members of the news media were not spared.
Police arrested Wences Balinguit of Southern Tagalog Exposure despite identifying himself as a journalist. Jaja Necosia of Kilab Multimedia was punched by an officer while she was shooting video of a policeman assaulting a passenger in a jeepney leaving the area. Photos show that the officer is the same PO3 Franklin Kho who ran over protesters with the police van.
Video footage also showed heavily armed SWAT personnel heckling reporters and trying to block cameramen covering the arrest of an injured protester.
We have received other reports about attempts by state agents to threaten journalists or prevent them from doing their work.
All this, of course, is happening within a bigger picture – the wanton violation of that most basic of rights, the right to life. And this in a “war” in which human rights and due process are seen as nuisances, and those supposed to serve and protect law-abiding citizens and to enforce the laws are assured of immunity from any liability that may arise from some “collateral damage” they may cause.
To be sure, impunity has been with us a long, long time, fuelled by official apathy towards violations of rights and government’s aversion to dissent.
It is clear from whence this impunity springs. What leaders say or do not say, what they do or do not do resounds among those who believe in them and will often be taken as gospel truth, if not as marching orders.
And never have we ever had a leader like President Rodrigo Duterte, who so openly dismisses rights and repeatedly tells law enforcers that they are above the law and who has regularly and publicly wished death and mayhem on his perceived enemies.
Dabet Panelo
Secretary-general, National Union of Journalists of the Philippines
(From the Philippine Daily Inquirer/ANN)
