At Tuesday’s press conference where he introduced the next set of Cabinet officials, President-elect Rodrigo Duterte was asked what he intended to do about the media killings that have made the country one of the most dangerous places in the world for journalists.
We can’t say we were surprised by Mr. Duterte’s response. He has always styled himself as the tough guy. We were appalled, nonetheless, and we add our voice to the chorus of anger and indignation that his words elicited.
Our next president believes that journalists who died were killed because they were corrupt. They were carrying out their work in a less-than-honorable way, offending or spreading lies about others for financial consideration. Hence, they deserved what befell them.
He went as far as digging up the name of a man who he says was killed because of how he conducted his profession. “He is a rotten son of a bitch,” Mr. Duterte said.
“Freedom of expression cannot save you,” he said. “Even the Constitution cannot help you [if you besmirch a person’s name].”
The lawyer-president sends a chilling message. He is telling us that it is all right to kill journalists if they, in their capacities as media workers, attack another person.
Sure, there is corruption in media, just as there is corruption in any other industry. There are plenty of hypocrites here, preaching righteousness and good governance even as they, in their professional lives, reject the very things they advocate. Sometimes it is a matter of economics. Sometimes, ego. At all times, it’s an act of free will.
This is not true for all journalists. Among those killed were legitimate, hardworking, honest people who took risks in the name of a higher good: to expose wrongdoing and to call for action. In the process, they may have offended, even disrespected, government officials, big business or private individuals. But such is the nature—the essence—of the profession: to ruffle feathers.
What is true for all is that nobody deserves to die. Mr. Duterte himself insults the memories of those who died and himself besmirches the names of those who cannot anymore defend themselves.
Just two weeks ago, he picked lawyer Salvador Panelo to become press secretary and spokesman. Panelo was the lawyer of one of the suspects in the 2009 Maguindanao massacre where 58 individuals, 32 of them media workers, were murdered. These 32 may or may not have been corrupt, but they were at that time just doing their jobs—covering the filing of a certificate of candidacy of the challenger to the ruling family.
This abominable message clouds, even negates, the other encouraging messages made that evening. For instance, Mr. Duterte said that because he trusted his choices, he would give his Cabinet officials a free hand in running their respective departments. Because it came early on during the conference, we took it as an indication that Duterte was making an effort to break out of his local-lord mentality, and to think like a rational, national leader that he is about to be.
But not just yet.
During the press conference, Duterte feigned irritation at a persistent reporter and asked somebody to shoot her with an armalite. Such words betray how lightly he takes the impunity with which the media killings are committed. This only brings foreboding, as we wonder what the rest of the next six years would be like.