DAGUPAN CITY—Radio and television stations in Pangasinan went off the air for a minute starting 7 a.m. on Saturday to mourn the mass murder of at least 24 media practitioners in Maguindanao.

Bernie Errasquin, president of the local chapter of the Kapisanan ng mga Brodkaster ng Pilipinas, said starting Saturday, local broadcasters will also be wearing black arm bands or ribbons for a week to express their collective denunciation of the “unprecedented act of violence.”

“We condemn the incident in the strongest possible terms. The perpetrators must be immediately brought to justice,” he said.

Pangasinan has seven AM and eight FM radio stations and two television stations.

In Baguio City, officials of the women’s group Innabuyog Gabriela and Cordillera Women’s Education Actions and Research Center (CWEARC) are tapping support groups in the international community to pressure the government to hasten the investigation of the Maguindanao massacre.

In a forum at the University of the Philippines Baguio on Friday, students, policewomen, nuns and human rights advocates opened the event by offering prayers to the victims, most of them women and journalists.

“The problem in Maguindanao should not only be seen as a … clan war. It’s a war that reflects the political crisis in the country,” said Vernie Yocogan Diano, Innabuyog Gabriela chair.

Media groups in Baguio City, Isabela and Cagayan also held candle-lighting ceremonies and wore black shirts and ribbons this week to mourn for the slain journalists and condemn the carnage.

In a statement on Saturday, Gabriela Rep. Liza Maza said the women victims “were massacred twice over—their lives were brutally taken [away] and they were sexually violated.”

Maza said paramilitary forces in the country should be disbanded “for they have long been used as private armies of political warlords.” Gabriel Cardinoza and Desiree Caluza, Inquirer Northern Luzon