Another journalist shot dead

2/20/2007 09:54:00 PM

A gunman wearing a baseball cap shot Hernani Pastolero twice in the back of the head, killing the editor of the weekly Lightning Courier as he sipped coffee in front of his house in Sultan Kudarat, Shariff Kabunsuan, at 6:20 a.m. Monday, police reported. Pstolero, 64, was the first journalist killed this year, the 50th since Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo became President in 2001 and the 110th since the Philippines regained democracy with the ouster of the dictator Ferdinand Marcos in 1986. Read more from the Philippine Daily Inquirer.

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    Democracy, according to the late Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme, is "a question of human dignity, [a]nd human dignity is political freedom, the right to freely express opinion and the right to be allowed to criticise and form opinions."

    But exercising political freedom in the Philippines, which purports itself to be a democracy, can lead to death. Since Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo assumed the presidency of the country in 2001, more than 800 Filipinos murdered in politically-motivated, extra-judicial, targeted killings. Since the 4th quarter of July 2005, one person has been killed every two days. The victims of these brazen acts of violence were all unarmed citizens: lawyers, judges, journalists, medical practitioners, members of cause-oriented groups, priests, church-workers, human rights advocates, laborers and farmers.

    It is widely believed—and the United Nations support this belief—that state security forces are complicit in these crimes.