PHILIPPINES & THAILAND: Unmasking the Culture of Impunity
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By Hector Bryant L. Macale — 2009 Asia Media Forum Fellow* The murder of journalists and media practitioners last Nov. 23 increased the number of Filipino journalists killed in the line of duty this year from three to 34 and added so many more to the 81 already killed in the Philippines since 1986, according to the database of the Manila-based Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility (CMFR). The culture of impunity in the Philippines, as exemplified by the high number of journalists killed in the line of duty, makes the country a shocking—and disappointing—standout in Southeast Asia when it comes to threats on and attacks against the press. However, this does not mean that aspects of impunity do not happen in other Southeast Asian countries and that their press communities remain free from threats and attacks. ASPECTS OF IMPUNITY A look at the threats to and attacks against press freedom in the region in fact shows some similarities across countries. “Some things don’t necessarily change,” said Roby Alampay, executive director of the Bangkok-based Southeast Asian Press Alliance (SEAPA). With constitutional guarantees on freedom of the press and of expression, Indonesia, Thailand, and the Philippines are perceived to have the freest presses in the region, but press communities in these countries are subject to varying threats and attacks anyway. “What’s also similar is that threats to press freedom in these three countries can now come from sectors and agents other than the government,” he added. Threats can come from non-state players such as criminal groups, religious fundamentalists, owners with commercial or vested interests, or from powerful private individuals. Established in 1998, SEAPA is a regional alliance of free press and expression advocates. Its founding members include CMFR. While attacks on and threats against the press happen in the region and elsewhere, there will be commonalities and differences on aspects involving impunity, Alampay said. “One commonality would be questions and factors leading to impunity, which are dictated by the health and strength of the overall justice and peace and order and rule of law.” These common problems leading to impunity include weak or vulnerable rule of law, existence of corruption, and slow or inefficient justice systems. What may help explain why more Filipino journalists are getting killed compared to their counterparts in the region is the rampant gun culture in the country. For 300 U.S dollars, you can buy a gun and a gun for hire in the Philippines, Alampay noted. In countries such as Indonesia, where gun laws are stricter, fewer journalists have been killed. But violence against Indonesian journalists comes in other forms, he emphasised. “What they’re higher at are attacks on newsrooms and maulings.” “So it’s a bit misleading just to look at the number of people killed. Where you can get a gun and gun-for-hire for 300 dollars in the Philippines, you can get a mob in Indonesia for the same amount,” Alampay said. “The key thing to look at is the violence.” Shawn Crispin, Asia Programme Consultant of the New York-based watchdog Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and Southeast Asia Editor of 'Asia Times Online', shares Alampay’s view. “Thailand doesn’t quite have the same gun culture,” said Crispin. When he went to Gen. Santos City last July to investigate the case of slain radio broadcaster Dennis Cuesta, Crispin recounted, he was astounded at the proliferation of firearms in the city and nearby areas. “The violence has spiraled in the Philippines; everybody has armed themselves. We’re just starting now to see it in Thailand’s three southernmost provinces. And there are lessons to be learned now because everybody is arming themselves now.” “One thing that is also peculiar in these countries that have impunity and violence against journalists is ironically because these are countries where media, ironically, are in fact powerful,” Alampay said. “The violence directed against you is directly proportional to how influential you actually are.” He argues that while other countries in the region do not have as high a number of journalists killed, other weapons of violence against journalists include repressive media policies, censorship or defamation laws, or mobs. “In all these countries, these are all violence against journalists.” The killing of journalists is not as rampant in Thailand as in the Philippines. But impunity, as reflected in other forms of violence against the press, exists anyway. “Impunity is not just about killings. It also manifests in other forms,” said Rowena Paraan, board member of the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines. These include the abuse of defamation and other suits to stifle press freedom and free expression. For Crispin, the biggest threat to Thailand’s press freedom is the lèse-majesté laws. Said to be among the toughest in the world and enforced strictly, Thailand’s lèse-majesté laws jail anyone who “defames, insults or threatens" the royal family to terms from three to 15 years. Afraid of being accused of lèse-majesté and of incurring public outrage, the Thai press censors itself and refrains from making critical reports and commentaries about the monarchy, especially the much-venerated King Bhumibol Adulyadej, the longest-reigning monarch in Thai history. Because anyone can easily file a complaint of lèse-majesté, cases of which can take years to resolve, there has been a chilling effect on Thai media, SEAPA alerts coordinator George Amurao said. “It’s like a sword dangling above a journalist’s head.” “The laws have always stifled freedom of expression, and the media have played along,” Crispin said. What is troubling in recent years, however, is that with concerns regarding the health of 82-year-old Adulyadej, there is “a risk we’re headed on a collision course that when this monarch goes and the next monarch comes, these laws might be thrown around a bit more aggressively.” On the other hand, veteran Filipino journalist Vergel Santos thinks culture plays a factor in the differences in the aspects of impunity that affect press freedom in Southeast Asia, particularly the Philippines and Thailand. “I think it’s the culture. They’re less activist in Thailand. The Thais are known to seek what would be a decent comprise,” he said. “Our journalism has been patterned after American practice and therefore is rather vigorous, even aggressive. Since the democratic reformation, there has been a continuous explosion of media.” “We probe the limits of freedom, not only vigorously, not only aggressively, but to extreme points. They (Thais) never had that tradition,” he added. Kulachada Chaipipat, SEAPA campaign and advocacy officer, agrees. Compared with the Philippines, critical commentaries as well as hard-hitting commentators are not that prevalent in Thailand. “The tone (of the coverage of issues) is more compromised, I think,” she said. Crispin agrees that impunity exists in Thailand and the Philippines, especially in the provinces. “In a lot of ways, Thailand’s and Philippines’ provinces are mirror images of each other. There’s lawlessness, local politicians that have too much power, and the press comparatively weak (compared to Manila and Bangkok),” he said. “One thing that’s different is that in the Philippines, you have liberalisation over the radio that you haven’t seen in Thailand at the provincial level.” In the Philippines, local radio broadcasters “challenge local political heavyweights on-air oftentimes with scandalous allegations, oftentimes personal.” In Thailand, local issues such as corruption and human smuggling are underreported. “In Thailand, there’s a real dearth of quality and incisive local-level journalism,” Crispin said. In addition, there is central state control over Thai radio. Romel Bagares, executive director of the Manila-based Center for International Law (CenterLaw), says it was the Marcos dictatorship that institutionalised a culture of impunity in the Philippines. “It’s still a legacy of the martial law years,” he said. “Martial law erected a machinery with so much impunity because they had so much power. And then, side by side with it, arose a political culture that was encouraged by martial law. The personalism, the factionalism, and the paternalism in politics, quite inexplicably, work well in the system that actually encouraged impunity.” (CenterLaw is an advocacy group that seeks to promote the rule of law to end impunity in the Philippines.) Santos echoes a similar view. A culture of impunity exists in the Philippines because there is a culture of corruption in the country abetted by the ruling political elite. “We have not seen anyone punished for corruption in this country,” Santos said. “This is a class-based society. People of the same class have come together. People from the ruling class will not punish people from the same class. And the irony is that, members of the same class are the only people capable of committing crimes with impunity. They created the problem but not one among them are jailed. It’s an oppression of class culture because they’re the members of the same class,” he explained, adding that this societal structure is rooted in the country’s colonial history. This systemic culture of impunity in the Philippines does not only stifle press freedom but also every other major institution, said Paraan. “The political system breeds that kind of culture. It’s hard to change it overnight.” Thus the problem of impunity is not only limited to the killing of journalists. Human rights defenders, advocates, activists, union workers, among others, have become victims of impunity, and their victimisation seems likely to continue unless the political leadership commits to stopping it with all the political will it can muster.
(The author works as senior staffwriter at the Manila-based Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility [CMFR]. He is the managing editor of 'Philippine Journalism Review Reports' [PJR Reports], the flagship media-monitoring publication of CMFR. 'PJR Reports' is the first and only publication of its kind in the country and has served as a model for various press communities around Asia. He is one of the four Asian journalists selected for the 2009 Annual Asia Media Forum Fellowships. This article was published in the November-December 2009 issue of the PJR Reports, based on his fellowship research focusing on impunity and the state of free press and expression in Thailand and the Philippines.) |
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