Angara: Gov’t must protect media men

CEBU, Philippines - The government should beef up security measures for members of the media to ensure their safety.

This was according to Team PNoy senatorial candidate Edgardo “Sonny” Angara in reaction to a recent report ranking the Philippines as the world’s third deadliest place for journalists.

Angara, who was in Cebu on Saturday in a statement sent to The Freeman, said that he would be a journalist if he was not a lawmaker.

“It deeply upsets me that we are being branded as one of the worst countries for journalists,” said Angara, a former business reporter of a national daily.

For the fourth consecutive year, the country ranked third in the Impunity Index of the Community to Protect Journalists for having 55 unsolved cases of slain journalists since 1992.

The impunity index identifies countries where newsmen are regularly murdered and where governments are unable to punish perpetrators.

Angara joined calls for an end to impunity, pointing to the increasing number of unsolved cases of violence against members of the media in the country.

“Our Constitution affirms the freedom of the press, yet members of the Philippine media have been continually subjected to harassment and violence. We must work now to reform a slow-moving justice system so such violence won’t happen again,” he said.

He said any campaign to silence journalists is a media nightmare that needs urgent attention.

The three-term representative from Aurora has filed House Bill 631 which seeks to consider as murder the killing of members of broadcast and print media while in the lawful exercise of their duties and functions, thereby amending Article 248 of the Revised Penal Code

Under the Revised Penal Code, murder is punishable by reclusion temporal in its maximum period or 20 years to death.

“This measure aims to curb violence against journalists to enable them to perform their duties without fear, and empower them to act as the Fourth Estate,” Angara said.