Aquino admin slammed for ‘apathetic’ stance on Maguindanao massacre

Filipinos light candles on a slogan bearing images of victims of a massacre that killed 58 people, including 32 journalists, as they mark its 5th anniversary with a candle lighting event at the historic EDSA Shrine in suburban Quezon city, north of Manila, Philippines on Sunday, Nov. 23, 2014. AP

LEGAZPI CITY, Philippines – Journalists in Quezon and Albay commemorated the Maguindanao massacre on Monday with protests and candle-lighting ceremonies, assailing the Aquino administration’s seeming apathy to the quest for justice of families of the 58 victims.

In Quezon, around 40 journalists lighted candles and staged a rally in Lucena City to commemorate the brutal murder of 58 people, 32 of them journalists, in Ampatuan town, Maguindanao province, on Nov. 23, 2009.

Darcie de Galicia, president of the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines-Quezon chapter, led local journalists in a short program in front of the Saint Ferdinand Cathedral in the city’s downtown area.

De Galicia, correspondent for a Manila-based radio station, said the Aquino administration did not seem to care that the trial of the accused has dragged on for five years now and that scores of those believed responsible for the slaughter have not been caught.

The rally was also attended by representatives of different media groups in the province.

After the program, the Quezon journalists lighted candles and offered prayers for all journalists who were killed because of their work.

Several journalists have been killed in Quezon, including hard-hitting radio broadcaster Polly Pobeda, who was shot dead in May 2003.

Local broadcaster Bert Sison was ambushed in 2009. In 2007, the Philippine Daily Inquirer’s Quezon correspondent, Delfin Mallari Jr., and Johnny Glorioso, news correspondent for dzMM radio, survived an ambush by two motorcycle-riding gunmen.

In Albay, more than 500 journalism and broadcasting students and editors of publications in various colleges at the Bicol University (BU) gathered for a forum and candle-lighting ceremony Monday afternoon.

The students, who were led by the Bicol Organization of Neo-Journalists, wore black shirts with the words “11.23 Remember.”

They released white balloons into the sky from the College of Arts and Letters grounds after lighting candles.

Angelo de los Reyes of Kabataan Party-list and several other press freedom advocates called for a speedy resolution of the Maguindanao massacre case.