Community journalists and barangay human rights officers (BHRAOs) from Davao City and nearby Davao provinces participated in a training workshop on reporting human rights from July 30 to August 1, probably the first attempt to enjoin the two sectors to help address the need to report human rights better.

More than 70 journalists from nine Asia-Pacific countries attended the first safety conference for the news media in the region at the Manhattan Hotel in Jakarta, Indonesia from 15 to 16 December 2008. The conference “Killing the Messenger: News Media in the Firing Line” was organized  by the International News Safety Institute (INSI) in partnership with the Center for Community Journalism and Development (CCJD) with grants from the United Nations Democracy Fund (UNDEF) under the Media, Democracy and Development project.

Spread across 7,000 islands with a population of more than 80 million, the Philippines faces enormous geographic and social infrastructure obstacles in substantially improving people’s lives. Poverty, especially in the rural areas, is very much pronounced despite government attempts to improve access to basic services. In many instances these attempts have been exceedingly slow in getting to the more remote regions to address the needs of vulnerable groups like indigenous peoples whose struggle for accessing land rights remains a challenge.

The University of the Philippines College of Mass Communication (UP CMC) will give the 2008 U.P. Gawad Plaridel to Atty. Pachico “Cheking” Seares. Named after Marcelo H. del Pilar (nom de plume, Plaridel) whose progressive ideals fueled the reformist newspaper La Solidaridad in the 1890s, the award recognizes the achievements of an outstanding practitioner from print, radio, film, television, or the new media.

Journalists today face a broad range of conflict situations that are extremely complex and confusing. From conventional wars with defined battle lines to acts of terrorism that blur boundaries, from banditry to extremism or even pocket wars between feuding clans, journalists have to put themselves in ever increasing danger to get the story out.

Image KIDNAPPING journalists in the Philippines is still rare event.
But it always happened in Sulu where peace and order deteriorated immensely in the past years no thanks to the Armed Forces of the Philippines which maintained a pretty sizable force on the island, a little bigger than Camiguin Island.

Once again press organizations and media associations will be condemning the latest killing of a Filipino journalist.  Once again international press watchdogs will call for a full investigation.  Once again police authorities will create another task force to go after the killers. Once again there will be a lot of angry denunciations.
The murder of community broadcaster Armando “Rachman” Pace, 51, of Radyo Ukay in Digos, Davao del Sur last July 18 brings to eight the number of journalists killed in the country this year.
“This brings the Philippines’ atrocious record for …

The Center for Community Journalism and Development (CCJD) strongly condemns the killing yesterday in Kidapawan City, North Cotabato of NGO workers and part-time journalists George and Macel Vigo.
Their brutal, cold-blooded and senseless killing puts to question the capacity of this government to protect its citizens and only serves to highlight the existence of a culture of impunity that it so assiduously denies.
The slaying of George and his wife Macel in broad daylight makes a mockery of justice and erodes the foundations of democratic institutions.  Their killing couldn’t have happened at …

The Center for Community Journalism and Development (CCJD) is alarmed by the government’s continuing harassment of media organizations and journalists despite the lifting of the state of national emergency last March 3.
The recent attempts of the police to obtain warrants to search the premises of the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ), the closure of the award-winning radio program “Ngayon na Bayan” aired over dzRJ, and the National Bureau of Investigation’s request to   television station ABC 5 to turn over a video tape are chilling manifestations of the state’s abridgement …