Last Monday, June 9, 2014, the 67-year old Baculio, who hosted the program “Isumbong Mo kay Ka Nilo” over radio station dwIM in Calapan City, was gunned down by two unidentified men riding in a motorcycle.
The National Union of Journalists of the Philippines, who monitors the state of media in the country including media killings said: “Baculio was the 165th journalist murdered in the country, the 33rd under the watch of President Benigno Aquino III and the fourth this year.”
Lawyer Harry Roque, who represented Baculio in procuring from the Supreme Court the first ever Writ of Amparo in favor of a journalist in 2008 but was refused by the CA ,said “There is blood in the hands of the CA Justices who refused Nilo Baculio protection.”
Roque said the killing of Baculio is a grim example of “what happens when the Court errs in their appreciation of evidence.”
Roque recalled: “Nilo in his application for protection order stated under oath that locally elected officials engaged in the illegal drug trade are out to kill him. The CA said this was not supported by evidence beyond the say so of Nilo. Granted that the CA’s decision was prior to the ruling of the Supreme Court in the Manado brothers case where the Court said that Amparo is proper in order to release a petitioner form the threat of fear form his life, the CA, in Baculios case, wanted evidence which oftentimes cannot be provided given the nature of threats against anyone: their verification is almost difficult if not possible.”
Baculio is dead. His comment that “Our justice system is rotten. You have to die first before you can prove” that a threat does exist became prophetic.
The NUJP attributes the impunity in the killing of journalists to the environment encouraged by the government. To be sure, it’s not only the Aquino government. Previous governments just paid lip service to the country’s notoriety as one of the most dangerous places for journalists and always cites the vibrant state of media freedom in the Philippines as if it’s their gift to media.
NUJP said:”Between a president who dismisses media killings because, to him, most victims are targeted “not because of professional activities, but, shall we say, other issues,” courts that, as Baculio sadly foretold, will believe lives are in danger only when those lives are actually lost, and security forces that, as a recent Human Rights Watch report and a number of other investigations into journalists’ murders have noted, are most likely involved, demanding, even hoping for, justice may seem to be an exercise in futility.”
NUJP further said “We will never tire of pointing out that the State’s failure to protect its own citizens makes it accountable for each and every extrajudicial murder that makes a mockery of all claims to our being a democracy.”
In President Aquino’s Independence Day speech yesterday, he recalled his fatehr’s words:“In a true democracy, every person is required not merely to protect the right of those they agree with, but to defend even the rights of those with whom they disagree. If the rights of any one is disregarded, there will come a time when your own rights will be disregarded.”
He could give substance to those words by sincerely appreciating the role of media plays in a democracy.
if journalists value their lives, they ought to stop putting themselves in harm’s way, be killed, maimed or traumatized. surely, nujp has guidelines published that make it safer for journalist to practice their profession without necessarily putting their own lives at risk. and then expect others to come to their aid and save them, maybe at the expense of other lives as well.
metaphorically speaking, I dont question journalists’ right to go to the highest mountain and holler there, but if they get injured while at the mountain top, they should not expect me or others to immediately come to rescue them at the expenses of my own life and maybe the lives of others where our families may suffer as consequence. I think journalists should be mindful and concerned of their own safety, rather than entrusting their safety to others, and hoped to be given priority.
The law of cause and effect o kaya karma. Nagkataon lang ba? Sa panahon ni Marcos ginusto ng pamilya ni Pnoy na mapatalsik si Marcos para na rin magkaroon ng kalayaan ang lahat kasama na ang mga nasa media o mamamahayag. Ngayong panahon ay Presidente si Pnoy at maraming nasa media ang napahamak dahil sa kalayaan na nakamit.