Mei Magsino

Mei Magsino once told a foreign reporter interviewing her on the challenges journalists who take on the powerful face in the Philippines, “The list of murdered journalists here is too long. I have to survive.I don’t want to become another statistic.”

Last Monday, Mei was added to the growing list of journalists killed in the country, which boasts of having the freest press in Asia. The Philippines also bears the ignominious distinction of one among the countries considered to be the most dangerous working place for journalists.

It was a shock to learn about Mei’s murder.

Mei was shot dead by motorcycle riding gunmen (riding in tandem again!) high noon, Monday while she was walking near her house in barangay Balagtas in Batangas.

The killing was so brazen, all we could say do was echo the lament that then Vice President Emmanuel Pelaez asked when he survived an ambush, ” “What is happening to our country, General?”

The Philippine National Police issued the usual statement about investigating the murder and bringing the culprits to justice.

Even if our tendency is to be cynical about government pledges, we have no recourse but to cling to our remaining faith in our law enforcement and in our justice system.

In the course of her journalism career, Mei has lived with death threats. In 2005, she implicated then Batangas Governor Armand Sanchez in illegal gambling. (Sanchez survived an assassination attempt in 2006 but died of heart stroke in 2010 in the middle of an election campaign)

Mei also exposed that then Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita was allegedly a recipient of jueteng money from Sanchez.

But Mei’s reporting is not limited to raking government’s dirt and exposing it. She writes about good things amid distressful situations.

One of the stories she wrote for VERA Files, where I’m one of the trustees and writers, was “Torture survivors make life worthwhile in prison.” It’s about how survivors try to overcome the trauma of their experience by engaging in livelihood projects. She said she was helping the survivors find a market for their products.

One article she wrote for VERA Files,“Taal embroidery now a dying craft” prompted the National Commission for Culture and Arts to do something to save the craft that was immortalized in a Fernando Amorsolo painting of Marcela Agoncillo sewing the Philippine flag with her daughter and a friend.

Another Batangas trademark that is endanger of becoming a thing of the past is the balisong and Mei wrote about it:“The blade that defines the Batangueno.”

Mei is “kalog” and has a devil-may-care attitude. It’s understandable that she shocks some people.

One time, I accompanied her to interview a real estate company executive to get the side of the company she was writing about. She submitted the article to VERA Files and we required her to get the side of the company.
We agreed to meet before going to the interview. She came dressed in a sexy tank top. I told her:”Don’t you have a blazer? Mr.( name of the real estate guy) might get distracted with your boobs.”

She took my remark gamely and replied, ” Don’t worry, Mamu, I’ll cover it” as she proceeded to put on a blazer.

That’s Mei– full of life, always with a cause.
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Statement of The National Union of Journalists of the Philippines on Magsino’s murder:

The NUJP mourns the death of former colleague Mei Magsino and joins demands for authorities to arrest and prosecute not only the gunman who killed her but the mastermind who ordered the assassination.

Mei’s murder not only highlights the fact that leaving journalism is no guarantee of safety from the perils of the profession — especially not from those with long memories and deadly intent — it also underscores the depths to which the culture of impunity has become entrenched in our country and society, courtesy of a government that has shown only the most cursory regard for human rights.

Especially since, as report after report shows, agents of the State have and continue to violate human rights with impunity, with government turning a blind eye or, in some cases, actually justifying, these depredations.
If subsequent details reveal her death involved her former work as a journalist, Mei will be the second fallen colleague this year, the 26th under President Benigno Aquino III, and the 166th since democracy was supposedly restored in 1986.

But even if it had nothing to do with her former work, her death would not be less heinous.

For this, and for thousands of other reasons, the state is and should be held accountable for Mei’s death and those of all other victims of extrajudicial executions in the country.