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Malacañang on Wednesday said it is not sleeping on the protection of media workers in the country amid report by a New York-based media watchdog that the Philippines is the second deadliest place in the world for journalists.

 

“We do not sleep [on our duty to protect] journalists especially after the Maguindanao massacre. This is something that we are fully conscious of,” presidential spokesperson Edwin Lacierda told a press briefing.

 

For giving the Philippines a negative impression, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) noted in a report posted on its website that at least 72 journalists have been killed in the Philippines since 1992.

On the other hand, the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP), said a total of 150 Filipino journalists have been killed since democracy was won back in 1986.

Nestor Burgos,  NUJP chairman, claimed that out of these cases, only 10 have been resolved.

 

Asked about the CPJ report, Lacierda said he will not comment on cases that happened before the Aquino administration took over the government.

 

“Ang layo naman. We’re not going to comment from 1992. I can only speak under this administration. What we’ve always said and the President has always said [is] that we frown on extralegal killings,” he said.

 

He said that the government immediately acts once it receives report on a killing of a journalist.

 

“Once there’s a reported killing, we immediately investigate and we immediately try to determine the motivation for the killing and, more often than not, there are always local business concerns or local politics involved,” he said.

 

“But once we are able to identify them, we file the necessary charges against those perpetrators,” he added. — Amita Legaspi/RSJ, GMA News