How do we make sense of the aberration of that Monday morning, the darkest day in the history of Philippine journalism, the day democracy was mocked with impunity and human rights were used as a floor mat with which to wipe blood-stained feet?

As the list of the murdered journalists became longer each day, familiar names stand out seemingly reaching out for help from those of us fortunate enough to have been out of harm’s way.  Many of them were acquaintances, some were eager learners in training workshops conducted so rarely but awaited with much anticipation, others have traveled with us on several occasions to try to make sense of what is happening in conflict-saddled areas of Mindanao.

There is sad resonance in the heart as the eyes scan each name.  There is also a heavy sense of guilt, of what could possibly have been done to avert such tragedy.  But the bigger the tragedy of it all is community journalists get noticed only when tragedy befalls them and they become the news.

Often working under terrible conditions, poorly paid, threatened, harassed and sometimes even murdered by powerful men who want to keep their dark secrets forever in the shadows, community journalists still are able to demonstrate an audacity to get the story out, sometimes even beyond the call of duty,  that others may find difficult to comprehend.

In many local areas they have become mitigating social structures as people lose faith in local leaders and the normal functioning of government.  One provincial journalist once wryly commented that “we also act as DSWD (meaning as social workers) because people have no one else to turn to.”

Some of them have been prompted to run for public office, seeing up close the misery of the disenfranchised that they report every single day.  They are most vulnerable to various forms of intimidation and the coercive powers of the purse because of the very challenging conditions they work in.

But their ranks are slowly thinning.  Just look at the list of 123 Filipino journalists who died in the line of duty since 1986. Almost all were from community papers or radio stations. On Monday, November 23, 2009, they were all but decimated by an act of unfathomable madness driven by the arrogance of power.

It is not the job of journalists to serve as deterrents to malefaction.  It is the State’s obligation to protect its citizens and to uphold human rights.  It is precisely the State’s failure to exercise its mandate that have prompted the 30 journalists to risk their own lives by accompanying the wife, sister, and aunt of Esmael Mangudadatu to file his certificate of candidacy in Sharif Aguak town.  They were accompanied by two women lawyers and several others, mostly women, in what was supposedly a simple electoral exercise.

That community journalists were at the forefront of this exercise should therefore not come as a surprise given the weakness, and even inutility of democratic institutions in many local areas.

What is numbing and incomprehensible is that they had to pay for their lives to do it. (RED BATARIO)

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Center for Community Journalism and Development

4^th Floor FSS Bldg., 89 Scout Castor St.,

Barangay Laging Handa, Quezon City 1103

Tel. +63 2 376 5550   Mobile: +63 917 891 3354

URL: www.ccjd.org Email: red.batario@gmail.com

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