Death by Democracy

Press Statement

18 April 2007

The Antonio Zumel Center for Press Freedom (AZCPF) strongly condemns the recent attacks on media people and journalists. The assassins want to prevent the media from bringing to the public the true state of the nation and the criminal activities being committed by those in power.*Carmelo Palacios, 41, a field reporter of Radyo ng Bayan, was found dead in Sta. Rosa town, Nueva Ecija, April 18. He is the 51st journalist to be killed under the Arroyo administration's increasingly blood-drenched watch, and the third this year.

A day after, Delfin Mallari Jr., correspondent of the Philippine Daily Inquirer and the host of a local radio program and editor of the local paper Ang Dyaryo Natin, was shot and wounded in an ambush in Lucena City.

In Cebu City, Leo Lastimosa, station manager of the local ABS-CBN radio, was slapped with a libel suit by Cebu Governor Gwendolyn Garcia because of his exposes on alleged scams committed during the preparations for the 12th Association of Southeast Asian Nations there.

The continuing attacks on media people and journalists can only be linked to the unabated attacks on militants and activists that are clearly politically-motivated.

Several prestigious international bodies, including the recent Permanent People’s Tribunal (PPT) have already pointed to the armed elements of the Arroyo regime as being responsible for these attacks, and have held the regime accountable for these crimes.

The Antonio Zumel Center for Press Freedom joins the National Union of Journalists in the Philippines and other media organizations in defending press freedom. Bullets and libel suits will not stop the good men and women of the media from their commitment to bring the truth to the people.

-3o-

An officer of a human rights organization was wounded in an ambush while his two companions were abducted by still unidentified men in a town near here Thursday night in what is seen as the first attack on political activists on Panay Island. Read more from the Philippine Daily Inquirer.

Nobel Peace Prize Winner Most Rev. Desmond Tutu, Archbishop Emeritus of Cape Town, South Africa, is one of the several supporters of the 2nd Session on the Philippines of the Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal (PPT) – where the Arroyo regime, the U.S. government, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank (IMF-WB), the World Trade Organization (WTO) and multinational corporations are facing charges for gross violations of civil and political rights, economic plunder and ecological destruction, and transgression of the Filipino peoples’ sovereignty. Read more from bulatlat.com.

An ecumenical report and a call to action documenting human rights violations in the Philippines will be launched today in Geneva (Palais des Nations, Room XXVII, 14:00), within the framework of the current session of the UN Human Rights Council.

Submitting the report - entitled "Let the stones cry out!" - is an ecumenical delegation from the Philippines whose participation in the Human Rights Council's meeting is being sponsored by the World Council of Churches (WCC) and the Lutheran World Federation (LWF).

The report "distills the collective cry for justice of thousands of Filipinos - including more than 800 victims of extra-judicial executions from the year 2001 to the present - who have suffered the brunt of violations of human rights under the Philippine government's counter-insurgency and counter-terrorism strategies".

It presents information on the violations and evidence of the complicity of government security forces, and discusses the historical, social, economic and political context in which the violations are committed, including a "culture of impunity".

An associated call to action is addressed to the UN Human Rights Council as well as to church and religious bodies in the international community and Philippines churches.

The launch of the report and a panel discussion with the members of the delegation is scheduled for 14:00 on 19 March at the Palais des Nations (Room XXVII).

The ecumenical delegation presenting the report includes representatives of the National Council of Churches in the Philippines (NCCP), the Philippines Ecumenical Bishops' Forum, the United Church of Christ in the Philippines, the Moro Christian People's Alliance as well as the US-based United Methodist Church.

The delegation will meet with the staff of the German mission to the UN, and will attempt to make oral interventions during the plenary sessions of the Human Rights Council on such topics as disappearances and Indigenous issues. It will also meet with staff of the WCC, LWF and other ecumenical organizations at the Ecumenical Centre.

Read the report on the WCC website.

Canada wants “to see arrests, prosecutions, and convictions” of the perpetrators of extrajudicial killings that continue to claim the lives of activists and journalists in the country.

Adding to the international pressure being brought to bear o the Arroyo government over the killings, Steven Rheault-Kihara, counselor for political and economic relations and public affairs of Canada's embassy in the Philippines, also expressed “great concern” that a witness who testified before United Nations special rapporteur Philip Alston was killed over the weekend. Read more from the Philippine Daily Inquirer.