The Philippines is the third most deadly place for journalists in the world after Iraq and Syria. The country has one of the world’s highest rates of unsolved media killings. In August, unidentified gunmen assassinated anti-corruption radio broadcasters Cosme Maestrado and Teodoro Escamilla, and president of the Davao del Norte Press and Radio-TV Club Gregorio Ybanez.
The Philippine media watchdog Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility says if all three murders were determined to be work-related, the number of journalists killed in the country would rise to 150 since democracy was restored following the ouster of Dictator Ferdinand Marcos in 1986.
So what do you do when your life is in constant danger, your colleagues are being gunned down, and the authorities can’t protect you? You arm yourselves. Though it is not legal, but the Filipino Journalists are taking up arms in the fight against corruption, and to protect themselves from assassins.
The National Press Club of the Philippines criticizes the country’s political and church leaders for their silence over a series of killings of journalists. Joel Egco, press club president, told ucanews.com, “Impunity continues because everybody is silent. Nobody cares. The government is not protecting us, the police are not going after the killers, and even our church leaders in this supposedly Catholic country are silent over the killings. We are being killed and nobody is talking for us. We cannot blame our journalists for taking up arms to defend themselves. It’s our only protection from attacks.”
This Article (Journalists Are Carrying Guns In The Philippines & The Reason Is Appalling) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to the author and AnonHQ.com.
