Days into his six-year term, President Rodrigo Duterte will create a task force on media killings, a Palace official said.
The announcement came just after a journalist in Surigao was attacked Thursday, the same day Duterte was sworn into office.
Saturnino Estaño Jr., a broadcaster, and his 12-year-old son sustained gunshot wounds during an ambush. Estaño was said to be speaking out against illegal drugs and corruption in his radio program.
The swift response by the Palace is a surprise if we consider Mr. Duterte’s earlier pronouncement on media killings. Just a few weeks ago, after winning the presidential race, Duterte elicited angry reactions and comments from various sectors after implying that murdered journalists were likely corrupt and that they deserved what happened to them.
Then-President-elect Duterte had to qualify his statements two days later because of the damage done by his earlier words. He thus made distinctions among genuine crusaders, those with vested interests, and extortionists.
There was never any denial from media groups that corruption did—does —exist among their ranks. Something is being done to police the ranks. Most objectionable was the thought that the killings could ever be justified.
But now the Palace says that it “stands by the side of good men” and told the yet-unidentified perpetrators that they will not succeed in their attempt to silence journalists.=
This week, too, President Duterte is expected to issue an executive order on freedom of information albeit only covering executive officials of the government.
It could be that at that time, Mr. Duterte was just playing to the gallery and relishing his role as a maverick politician before he actually takes on the helm of the country. It could be he was thereafter advised—and advised well to change tack. He promised, after all, a metamorphosis even as he once said he would never change his nature and the rest of us better get used to that.
Whatever the reason, these developments are welcome even as we continue to view them cautiously.
The new administration must show it is committed to a sustained and consistent protection of journalists from a culture of impunity that has lorded over the industry for so long. That the most recent victim spoke out against drugs should not set him apart from the others who speak out against other ills, equally troubling, even as they may not rank high in the priority of the administration.
We also hope that freedom of information—not just the executive order, or the law, but the culture—would be the norm in the next six years, and that this would not be used as a token measure but as a real policy.
The signs are good, so far, but the public must remain vigilant that the goodwill is translated into real action and meaningful results.
