by Alex Austria

A total of 107 journalists have been killed under former president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s term, spanning a total of nine years.

Most organizations and groups have viewed these figures as the manifestation of the “culture of impunity” in the country. According to an inquiry done in September 2009 by UNESCO and the Asian Institute of Journalism and Communication, indicators of impunity are “disregard for the rule of law, violations of existing regulations that govern everyday life (e.g., traffic and waste management, transparency and accountability in government procedures and transactions), and continuing violations of human rights and democratic processes.”

The “culture of impunity” under Arroyo’s term was already palpable, beginning with her controversial win in the 2004 presidential elections.

“Hello Garci” was a scandal that surfaced in June of 2005, involving then-COMELEC Commissioner Virgilio Garcillano and Arroyo herself in the alleged rigging of votes. To this day, the case has not yet been solved.

In the same year of “Hello Garci”, Marlene Esperat, a journalist from Mindanao, was murdered in her own home in front of her children.

Esperat wrote a weekly anti-graft column for Central Mindanao’s Mindanao Review, and implicated several officials in the Department of Agriculture in the “Fertilizer Scam” scandal.

According to Atty. Prima Quinsayas, legal counsel for the Freedom Fund for Filipino Journalists, the case of Esperat is a prime example where “The accused walks free, while the witness gives up his life.” While the gunmen behind the killing were convicted and sentenced, the witness to the murder lives in seclusion and mastermind behind the murder has yet to be convicted.

Perhaps the most chilling example of this culture of impunity can be found in the Maguindanao Massacre that occurred on November 23, 2009 in Ampatuan, Maguindanao. 58 people were killed in a single event allegedly arranged by Andal Ampatuan Sr. and his son, Zaldy Ampatuan.

Both are in detention and under trial in the Metro Manila Regional Trial Court, branch 221. While the case, which is being heard by Judge Jocelyn-Solis Reyes, is moving “relatively fast” according to Quinsayas, only 64 out of the 196 accused have been arraigned, with 102 at large. (See related article.)

The same positivity, however minute, cannot be said for the case of Crispin Perez, a broadcast journalist for DWDO Radio. Perez was gunned down by a local police officer and bodyguard for a local politician on June 2009 in his hometown of San Jose, Mindoro Occidental. The case reached the courts later than the Maguindanao Massacre case, which happened on November 23, 2009.

“There is a certain arrogance to what happened,” said Rowena Paraan, secretary-general of the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines. Though these words were uttered in a forum commemorating the Maguindanao Massacre, it can nevertheless be adapted to all of the cases of extra-judicial killings in the Philippines, all done under the culture of impunity, most alarmingly apparent under the term of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

Though the former president has been slapped with a P15-million lawsuit by the relatives of the victims of the Maguindanao Massacre along with other unrelated graft and corruption charges, Arroyo has denied any wrongdoing.