For the second year, the Philippines ranked fifth among the countries with the worst records of prosecuting killers of journalists, a report from the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) showed.
In its 2018 Global Impunity Index, CPJ revealed that the Philippines had the fifth highest impunity rating, preceded only to South Sudan, Iraq, Syria and Somalia.
From 2011 to 2014, the Philippines ranked 3rd in the list before moving down to 4th in 2015 and 2016. Last year the country moved down to 5th place.
Following the Philippines in CPJ’s 2018 report were Afghanistan, Mexico, Colombia, Pakistan, Brazil, Russia, Bangladesh, Nigeria and India.
War-torn Somalia topped the list for the fourth time in a row, followed by Syria, Iraq, and South Sudan, the non-profit organization for press freedom said.
The CPJ noted that at least 324 journalists worldwide have been murdered with 85 percent of those cases have no perpetrators convicted for the crime.
“It is an emboldening message to those who seek to censor and control the media through violence. More than three quarters (82 percent) of these cases took place in the 14 countries that CPJ included on the index this year,” Elisabeth Witchel, CPJ Impunity Campaign Consultant said.
All the 14 countries have featured on the index multiple times since CPJ began compiling its annual report in 2008, according to Witchell.
Improvement in ranking
For the Presidential Task Force on Media Security (PTFoMS), the country’s rating can be seen as an improvement.
In a Palace briefing on Tuesday, PTFoMS Executive Director, Undersecretary Joel Egco said the results of the report were somehow expected, as it used the number of unsolved media-related murders over a 10-year period.
This would cover the Maguindanao Massacre in 2009 where 32 media workers were killed, Egco noted.
The Maguindanao massacre has been tagged as the world’s deadliest single attack on media workers. The casualties included journalists, civilians, and members of the Mangudadatu family. /cbb