How much safer could one get than being home and watching television with your wife?
Apparently not safe enough, as the case of Manila Standard, Bandera and Reuters correspondent Jesus “Jess” Malabanan found out. The veteran journalist died instantly from a head shot after being hit at close range in his home in Calbayog, Western Samar early Wednesday evening.
Predictably, numerous groups and personalities released statements of strong condemnation. The Pampanga Press Club, for instance, was one of the first to call on the Philippine National Police to swiftly hunt down Malabanan’s killers and ensure that justice is served.
The Commission on Human Rights also launched an investigation into the shooting and condemned the attack on a media practitioner. “Without bringing the perpetrators to account, this episode of violence further worsens the climate of impunity and affects the freedom of the press to conduct their work without fear,” said the commission’s spokesperson, Jacqueline Ann de Guia.
Meanwhile, the Presidential Task Force on Media Security said in a statement that in 2017, Malabanan sought its help regarding his security. Apparently, not much help was given.
The same task force is now looking at the killing of Malabanan, according to Cabinet Secretary and acting presidential spokesman Karlo Nograles who also condemned the murder “in the strongest possible terms.”
We, too, condemn the killing of Jess, a dear friend and one of our own – but also the climate of impunity, the short attention span, the slow pace of justice, the lip service of bodies whose task it is to keep journalists safe, and all other factors enabling this travesty to be committed over and over again against members of our profession.
What do all these condemnations amount to? Jess is not the first – he is the 22nd journalist to have been killed during this administration – and he certainly won’t be the last. Are we just supposed to cower and practice self-restraint in the hopes of not ruffling some violent feathers?
Last year, the Philippines improved two notches in the Global Impunity Index by the Committee to Protect Journalists. We moved from the fifth most dangerous to the seventh most dangerous, primarily because of the 2019 convictions in the Ampatuan case. We retained our seventh place this year.
But if for some perverse reason some people think that the job is done and that they can now high-five each other for this marginal movement, then they are wrong – and sick. We continue to be one of the most dangerous places in the world for journalists. Let that sink in.
Investigations should continue and perpetrators – and masterminds – should be hauled off to jail. But we should also address the environment that emboldens them to silence media workers just because they do not like what is being written about them. They should be made to understand that they will be found, arrested, tried, convicted and punished – with absolute certainty.
Without this guarantee, they will continue to play god over those who make a living by bringing the news to the people.