Telling the truth can get the journalists ‘killed,’ and so with their insufficient salaries.

Telling the truth can get the journalists ‘killed,’ and so with their insufficient salaries.
by Roy Lagarde

As local journalists join the commemoration of the World Press Freedom Day, an official of the Philippine Press Institute (PPI) detailed some issues journalists are facing that can only their bosses could address.

For PPI executive director Ariel Sebellino, the country cannot even talk about press freedom “if we don’t discuss this situation.”

According to him, many journalists especially in the provinces are underpaid “and not paying them properly is one way of killing them.”

“If you don’t create a helping environment for journalists, you are slowly killing them… not just because their foes are gunning them down but even the systems are killing journalist,” Sebellino said.

“If you don’t give them sufficient salaries, you are not just killing the journalists but also their families,” he said.

According to him, a “tangible resources” for journalists could also prevent corruption in the media industry.

“It’s really one way for journalists to refuse bribes. In the media industry, there is one that corrupts and there is some that is corrupted,” he said.

Safety

The safety of journalists, Sebellino said, is a fundamental pillar of the universal and inalienable right to press freedom.

In the Philippines, he noted, journalists are often assigned in “hot spots” sans the guarantee of their right to work free from threat of violence.

“The question is before you were assigned there, is there a safeguard for you to do that? So that when you report, you’ll go back alive,” said Sebellino.

“We need leading journalists to tell the story but we want them to go back alive,” he added.

Apart from their sheer right of being paid an honest peso for an honest day’s work, journalists also need to stand together to reassert the stature of their profession.

“It’s not always that ‘if you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.’ The mere fact that a journalist shows that kind of passionate work, there must be a proper remuneration for that,” he said.

Not so rosy

A group of journalists and photojournalists in Metro Manila on Friday marked the World Press Freedom Day with a kite flying activity at the UP Diliman in Quezon City as a symbol of rising against impunity and killings.

This despite a media landscape that is “not really good,” Sebellino said.

“I will not say that it’s deteriorating. I would say that it’s still a very unfortunate situation in the Philippines. From the past administrations until now, it’s all speeches that they will look into our problems,” he said.

“The not so rosy picture of the state of the press freedom in the Philippines only shows that the government needs to work more to protect press freedom,” said Sebellino.

The state of press freedom in the Philippines remains lamentable, according to the recent impunity index of the Committee to Protect Journalists.

The National Union of Journalists (NUJP) said that the 55 unsolved cases of journalist murders reflect a "terrible record in combating anti-press violence".

An international press freedom group, for the fourth year in a row, has ranked the Philippines the third world worst country in the world, after Iraq and Somalia in terms of unresolved journalist murders.

A report recent report by the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists said the Philippine government has also failed to make arrests and prosecute those responsible for the killings.

Photojournalist from PCP commemorating World Press Freedom Day at UP Diliman, open oblation ground on May 3, 2013