Journos not spared from police attacks in anti-US rally

A police patrol car rammed the protesters and ran over some at an anti-US rally outside the US embassy. SCREENGRAB FROM AP VIDEO

The National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP) on Thursday said members of the media were not spared from the brutal dispersal in front of the US Embassy, condemning the police attacks as a “clear case of violence by the state against its own people.”

In a statement, the NUJP said a certain Jaja Necosia of Kilab Multimedia was punched by a police officer after shooting a video of policeman assaulting one passenger in a jeepney that was already leaving the area. Citing pictures of the incident, the NUJP identified the officer as PO3 Franklin Kho, who was also earlier named as the driver of the police van that ran over protesters.

READ: WATCH: Police van runs over protesters at anti-US rally

“Video footage of the dispersal’s aftermath also showed heavily armed SWAT (Special Weapons and Tactics) personnel heckling reporters and trying to block cameramen covering the arrest of an injured protester… We have received other reports of state agents attempting to prevent journalists from doing their work and even threatening them if they persist,” the NUJP said in a statement.

NUJP said one Wences Balinguit of Southern Tagalog Exposure was also nabbed by personnel of the Manila Police District despite identifying himself as a journalist.

Alluding to the administration’s bloody war on drugs, the press group traced the impunity to a rampant violation of the right to life “in a ‘war’ in which human rights and due process are seen as nuisances and those supposed to serve and protect and enforce the laws are assured of immunity for any ‘collateral damage’ they may cause.”

“Where perception, no matter if based on misinformation or outright prevarication, is held as more important than the truth, and the truth-tellers treated as the enemy for belying the preferred narrative,” NUJP said.

In a recent interview with Al Jazeera, President Rodrigo Duterte called children and innocent people killed in the antinarcotics campaign as “collateral damage,” saying that policemen can kill civilians in antidrug operations without criminal liability.

“It is clear from where this impunity springs. We have always said that what leaders say or do not say, what they do or do not do, resound among those who believe in them and will often be taken as gospel truth or even marching orders,” the statement read.

“Thus, the silence of past presidents to the wanton violation of rights helped fuel the impunity with which these rights were regularly violated by agents of the state and their cohorts.  But never, and again we mince no words, have we ever had a leader, President Rodrigo Duterte, who has so openly dismissed human rights and repeatedly exhorted law enforcers that they are above the law, who has regularly and publicly wished death and mayhem on those he perceives as the enemy,” it added.

Duterte, who is in China on a state visit, said he would order an investigation of the violent dispersal. Nine Manila police officers were removed from their posts pending investigation. RAM/rga

READ: Van driver, Manila cops relieved over violent dispersal

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