Centerlaw condemns “darkest hour in Philippine journalism”
Reference: Atty. H. Harry L. Roque, Jr. +639175398096
Manila, Philippines – The Center for International Law (CENTERLAW) condemns in the strongest possible terms the alleged abduction and execution of 40 people in Maguindanao, including 20 local journalists, in what is reported to be an election-related violence.
“We join all sectors in denouncing this vicious violation of the elementary rules of humanity,” said lawyer Harry Roque, chair of the Manila-based non-profit with a broad advocacy to promote the rule of law in the Philippines and the Asian region through the promotion of international legal norms.
He said what is especially heinous about the carnage is that even journalists were not spared from the violence. Fresh reports say 21 persons, who were among a group of local politicians and journalists abducted in the southern Philippines on Monday have been found dead.
“Over the last ten or so years, the press in the Philippines has come under attack,” said Roque, “and yet this is Philippine journalism’s darkest hour – if reports are true that every one in the group abducted by gunmen had been executed, some of them by beheading.”
He called on authorities to immediately dispatch investigators to the scene of the crime to gather evidence and file the appropriate charges against those responsible.
He said CenterLaw is fielding its Executive Director, lawyer Romel Regalado Bagares, to the region to assess the situation and see what legal remedies are available to the families of the journalists who were reported to have been killed in the attack.
CenterLaw, the group that Roque heads, is a member of the Southeast Asia Media Defense Network.
The gunmen responsible for the carnage are allegedly in the employ of a powerful politician in the region.
The Philippines has been on the list of declared hotspots in the world for working journalists. A supposedly peaceful democracy, it has been lumped with the world’s conflict zones because of the unabated extrajudicial killings in the country targeting many journalists.
“This is a horrendous crime,” said Roque. “The killings must end.” He said the Philippine government has continually failed to abide with its obligations under international law to protect its own citizens, let alone journalists, from unabated criminality.
Among those abducted were the wife of a mayor in Maguindanao province, Esmael Mangundadatu, his aides and supporters.
The journalists were invited by Mangundadatu’s group to a local elections office to where he was set to file his candidacy for governorship of the predominantly Muslim Maguindanao province in the May 2010.
The Mangundadatu clan has a long-running feud with the family of Maguindanao’s incumbent governor Andal Ampatuan, a local warlord and military officials say the latter has in his control about 100 gunmen, most of whom were militiamen he had deputised as security men for his family, according to a news report from the Philippine Daily Inquirer, a Manila-based English-language daily.
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H. Harry L. Roque; Jr
Chairperson
CenterLaw Philippines
1904 Antel Corporate Center
121 Valero Street, Salcedo Village
1227 Makati City Philippines
www.centerlaw.org <http://www.centerlaw.org>
administration@centerlaw.org
Tel +632.8873894
Fax +632.8873893
On the Maguindanao Ampatuan Massacre
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PUTANG INA MO ANDAL AMPATUAN MAMAYA PUPUNTAHAN KITA SA CRAME PASASABUGIN KO IKAW. NAGBIGAY KA NG KAHIHIYAN SA BUONG PILIPINAS! PUTANG INA MO GAGO KA TARANTADO KA DEMONYO KA LECHE KA BUWISIT KA FUCK YOU KA SON OF A BITCH HAYOP KA ANAK NG JUETENG DEMONYO TARANTADO!!! MAMATAY KA NA!
The Philippine Journalism’s DARKEST HOUR that shows its oblivious ignorance and stupidity is CES DRILON KIDNAPPING NEWS BLACK OUT. Extreme at its most extreemest.
They imposed news blackout so as not to anger Abu Sayaf. What? Who are they kidding?
Terrorists like Abu Sayaf feeds on publicity like all beheadings and kidnapping. who are the these peryodistas trying to fool?
DUH!
Another extreme Darkest of blackest hour is publication of Joey de Venecia’s tsismis on ZTE.
Joey de Venecia knew very well, as a CEO, and peryodistas who claimed to be professionals that when they do contracts it is not verbal but written. And lo and be hold this Joey went to “professional” peryodistas with this story and “professional” peryodistas published Joey’s story.
DUH! CAN NEVER HAPPEN IN CIVILIZED WORLD. The peryodistas in Washington DC knew about Clinton’s daliance with Monica but did not publish because it was all tsismis. Here, in the PHilippines, tsismis are published.
DARKEST OF DARK JOURNALISM. Now we are still groping in the darkness on ZTE.
Antoehr darkest of darkest of journalism is there was no criticism in outing of Nicole a rape victim. DUH! WHERE ARE THE SELF-CRITICISM? DUH!@
It is better for rookie policemen in America compared to our foreign-educated ivy-school graduate who speak goot englischtzes because when they invistigate they don’t pagarparings to the “repsonsible” “professional” peryodistas. Here, in the PHilippines they pagarparings and the peryodistas are so oblivious what their responsiblities are.
DUH!
As to massacre, the darkest hour of journalism is their obliviousness of basic invistigative process. The supposedly professional invistigators didn’t peel layer and layer of the crime scene. YOU KNOW WHAT THEY DID? They used the same backhoe to pull-out the bodies! DUH! Did they dust the backhoe for prints? DUH! Why would ampatuan bring the backhoe to bury the 36 and leave the 57 unburried? HAS ANYONE ASKED THIS QUESTION? DUH!
AS to Failon suicide whatever … I got plenty of questions than these ‘professional’ peryodistas!
duh!
A lawyer worth his salt should know what questions to ask!