“LITRATO: Chasing light, glimpses of life” will showcase our slideshows on the PCIJ’s Youtube and Vimeo Channels. Litrato means “picture” in Filipino. “Ama at anak (Father and son)” is the title of this week’s episode.
It was early evening on the Chinese New Year when I met Allan Ebañez, a former construction worker.
His seven-year-old son, Allan, was piggybacking. They have been walking for several kilometers that night. They have been doing this for the past 900 nights or so.
Allan and Glenn have been homeless for the past three years. Allan’s bitter separation with his wife in Bulacan province forced them out on the streets.
“She was unfaithful,” he said.
Two other children of Allan live with his wife. For now, he and Glenn are family. Their house is anywhere in Quezon City.
IT WAS created to ensure that its peoples would no longer be left behind in development and that they would finally enjoy peace. Yet more than 25 years after its creation, the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) remains unable to deliver on its twin objectives.
ARMM represents about four percent of the country’s population, based on 2010 figures. It comprises five provinces, two cities, 116 municipalities, and 2,490 barangays. The five provinces are Basilan, Lanao del Sur, Maguindanao, Sulu, and Tawi-Tawi.
Infighting among clans, clashes between the Philippine military and Muslim insurgents, and the activities of lawless elements have made for a tense and uneasy ARMM populace. Unsurprisingly, ARMM has failed to prosper, and official statistics make this all the more apparent.
FIGHTERS of the Moro National Liberation Front in Mindanao | PCIJ file photo published on October 2012
President Corazon C. Aquino signed into law Republic Act No. 6734 (the Organic Act of ARMM) on Aug. 1, 1989. On Nov. 17, 1989, a plebiscite was conducted in the proposed areas of ARMM but only four provinces – Maguindanao, Lanao del Sur, Tawi-Tawi, and Sulu opted to join it. Exactly 25 years ago on Feb. 17, 1990, Zacaria Candao won the first election for ARMM; he assumed office as the first ARMM regional governor on July 6, 1990.
On Sept. 2, 1996, President Fidel V. Ramos signed a Peace Agreement with the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) that led to the election of MNLF chairman Nur Misuari as ARMM regional governor.
In September 2001, at a plebiscite conducted for the ratification of Republic Act No. 9054 on the expansion of ARMM, Basilan and the Islamic City of Marawi voted to be part of the regional government.
GOVERNMENT troops deployed in Mindanao | PCIJ File Photo
In the November 2001 elections for ARMM, Dr. Farouk Hussien won as Regional Governor for the expanded ARMM and assumed office in January 2002.
However, in the subsequent elections in 2005 and 2008, Arroyo’s political lieutenant, Datu Zaldy Ampatuan won as regional governor, while his son Datu Zaldy Ampatuan won as governor of Maguindanao province.
After the Ampatuans were charged for the massacre of 58 persons, including 32 media workers in what has been called “the Maguindanao massacre” of Nov. 23,2 009, ARMM regional vice governor Ansaruddin Alonto became ARMM Governor in acting capacity.
FORMER ARMM governor and MNLF chairman Nur Misuari | PCIJ File Photo
But five governors and 25 years hence, ARMM has consistently remained the poorest region in the Philippines. Maguindanao and Lanao del Sur have always landed on the National Statistical Coordination Board’s list of top 10 poorest provinces since 2000. The numbers barely move as years pass. In ARMM, over half the number of families cannot afford basic needs such as food, housing, and clothing. By comparison, at the national level, one in four families is poor.
In 2009, the Philippines had a Human Development Index (HDI) value of .609, which placed it in the “medium human development” category. ARMM’s Human Development Index value, meanwhile, was at .35, which put it under the “low human development” level.
AN ARTILLERY unit of the Armed Forces in Mindanao | PCIJ File Photo
The HDI is an alternate way of measuring progress by assessing human development through life expectancy, years of schooling, and income. ARMM’s HDI was at the level of African countries such as Niger, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the Central African Republic. These African countries had Gross Domestic Product per capita of anywhere between $400 and $700, whereas the Philippines posted at least $2,700.
Among the 17 regions in the Philippines, ARMM posted the lowest simple and functional literacy rate at 82 percent and 72 percent, respectively, in 2013. Simple literacy is the ability of a person to read and write with understanding a simple message in any language or dialect. Functional literacy includes numeracy and all the life skills and knowledge a person needs to survive and function in a society.
The 2012 data of the Department of Education showed that more than two pupils shared a seat in ARMM when seats had already been adequate for pupils at the national level.
MULTIMEDIA: Slideshow of photos taken by journalist Jose Jaime Espina on 2009, a year after fighting broke out between government forces and the Moto Islamic Liberation Front after the Supreme Court struck down the Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain.
Worst, the 2011 DepEd data indicated less than a quarter of the students completed their elementary education in ARMM. The lowest survival rate was recorded in Marawi City and Tawi-Tawi at merely eight percent. – PCIJ, February 2015
WE are reblogging this article originally titled “Q and A with MILF Commander Haramen on Mamasapano: Walang eroplano, walang bazooka” published on the MindaNews website on February 13, 2015. It includes a Q and A by MindaNews’ Carolyn O. Arguillas with Commander Haramen, operations commander of the 7th Brigade of the 105thBase Command of the MILF’s Bangsamoro Islamic Armed Forces (BIAF).
SITIO AMILIL, Barangay Tukanalipao, Mamasapano, Maguindanao (MindaNews/12 Feb) — The few residents living along the highway in Barangay Tuka saw the signs of war when several truckloads of “sundalo” in full battle gear arrived late Saturday evening, January 24, disembarked from their vehicles and walked to the direction of Tukanalipao, some two kilometers away.
Bai Monera, 40, said the “sundalo” left their vehicles on the road. “Sundalo” in these areas is generic for government forces in camouflage uniform and the regulation boots. Monera only knew they were “pulis” when they heard the news the next day that members of the Special Action Force of the Philippine National Police (PNP-SAF) operated near their area.
Sunday dawn, January 25, gunshots awakened residents near and far. By evening, what would be the highest death toll in a single day clash between the government (GPH) and Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) in the last 18 years — 67 — happened: 44 from the SAF, 18 from the MILF, and five civlians, according to the Commission on Human Rights.
The tragedy in Mamasapano happened 10 months after the signing of the Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro (CAB) and came at such a crucial time, as Congress was deliberating on the Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL) that would serve as the charter of the future Bangsamoro Government, the new autonomous political entity that both parties had targeted to install by 30 June 2016.
Click on the photo to read the full article on the MindaNews website.
MILF commander Haramen (right) is escorted by his men, narrated what happened on January 25, 2015 in an interview two Sundays later, February 8, at the cornfields in Sitio Amilil, Barangay Tukanalipao, Mamasapano, Maguindanao | MindaNews photo by Gregorio Bueno
No mastermind convicted yet for media killings since 1986
By Cong B. Corrales
LAST WEEK’S conviction of one of the persons accused of the 2010 murder of broadcaster Miguel Belen is but the 14th conviction among 172 cases filed in court against suspected killers of journalists and media workers.
Not a single one of those convicted were masterminds.
Judge Timothy Panga of Regional Trial Court Branch 60 in Camarines Sur sentenced Eric Vargas to reclusion perpetua or imprisonment of up to 40 years for the murder of Belen who was shot on July 9, 2010 while on his way home to Barangay Francia in Sorsogon City.
Belen worked at radio station dwEB-FM. He died of his injuries in a hospital on July 31 that year.
Notwithstanding the verdict, we note that after a case that ran for close to five years, full justice remains elusive because another suspect, Gina Bagacina, who media reports say is a New People’s Army member, remains at large. And given the fact that Belen was known to be tackling politics and corruption at the time of his death, it is most likely that the investigation into the murder has failed to identify the mastermind…Nevertheless, the conviction of Vargas provides a ray of hope in a country where very, very few cases of media killings even reach the courts due to inept investigation or the actual involvement of local executives and police in many of the murders. – National Union of Journalists of the Philippines
The International Federation of Journalists also welcomed the decision.
Of the 23 media killing cases, only four are in the trial stage, five cases filed with the Prosecutor’s Office, 11 cases still under police investigation, one case under preliminary investigation by the Department of Justice, and two cases which the PNP-Task Force Usig has classified as “cold cases.”
While in the Intensive Care Unit, Belen identified Vargas and Gina Bagacina from the rogues’ gallery of the Philippine National Police. Bagacina is reportedly members of the New People’s Army, the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines.
Banga also ordered Vargas to indemnify the Belens an amount of 150,000 for “moral and exemplary damages and to pay the cost of litigation.”
Bagacina is still at large.
MIKE BELEN | Photo from Bicol News
Bicol News has quoted Belen’s widow Maryjane as saying: “I was not able to sleep for the past three nights in anticipation of this day.”
“She (Maryjane) said it was triumph for them and for those who sought justice for slain media men as she thanked all organizations who assisted them in the fight for justice especially the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP),” the Bicol News report reads in part.
The online news portal also quoted Belen’s only daughter, Karen, saying that Panga’s decision was worth the wait and now they have “good news for papa on his anniversary.”
In an emailed reply, Friday, NUJP national chair Rowena Paraan said that while the NUJP welcomes the conviction of Vargas, as it “provides a ray of hope for other cases of media murders in the Philippines, it must be noted that convictions of journalist killers are very few and far between.
“We welcome this conviction but we also demand a more determined effort on the part of PNP and DOJ so that more cases get filed and thus more convictions secured,” said Paraan.
Click on the photo below to read the PCIJ article “23 journalists killed in 40 month of PNoy, worst case load since ’86″
REPORTERS in the Philippines light candles during a commemoration for the Ampatuan Massacre, the single deadliest attack on journalists in the world. Thirty-two media workers and reporters were murdered in the southern Philippine province of Maguindanao | Photo by Julius D. Mariveles
Paraan added that the reality is only a handful of cases reach the courts because of “inept investigation or actual involvement of local executives and police in many of the cases.”
For its part, NUJP Camarines Sur Chapter issued a statement that the conviction had taken a long time and is not a complete relief because Bagacina is still at large.
Justice for our fallen colleague might have been a hard and arduous journey but least we can say is that justice though long overdue is after all a common stuff in our justice system,” the NUJP-CamSur statement read.
KEVLAR helmets and bullet-proof vests may not be the ultimate guarantees to keep a journalist alive.
And safety is not only the responsibility of the individual reporter, it should also be the concern of editors and the news organisations they are working for.
“Our job is really risky; we should deal with safety on a daily basis,” Drew Sullivan, editor of the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project told journalists during a discussion on physical threats, one of the breakout sessions of Uncovering Asia: The First Asian Investigative Journalism Conference.
OCCRP does reporting on organised crime, terrorism, and official corruption in Eastern Europe.
Sullivan said there have been studies showing that 70 percent or seven out of 10 reporters were killed because of the stories they are working on. Seventy percent of those killed, however, were never warned.
“They did not get any warning that something was about to happen,” he pointed out.
While journalists are “soft targets” or more vulnerable to attacks, preparations can be made to reduce the risks. He also said most of the fatalities told friends they were being followed before their murders.
Among the tips that Sullivan gave were:
No one knows more about crime than the criminals. Talk to those who are in jail so you can know what you’re dealing with, especially those who belong to organised crime groups.
Most journalists were killed either at home or the office. Be aware of it.
Know the modus operandi of people who might be out to get you.
Be aware of what is happening in your neighbourhood. Do you know who lives across your place? Have you seen motorcycles in your area?
Watch out for the so-called “social engineering.” Has anyone been calling your office looking for you?
Switch up reporters doing a story.
Change your routine.
Do counter-surveillance on yourself.
There is safety in organizing, NUJP’s Rowena Paraan says | Photo by Cong. B. Corrales
Rowena Paraan, national chairperson of the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines, on the other hand, said newsrooms should provide enough resources for journalists to keep them safe. There should also be safety protocols that must be followed in every news organisation.
She added that organising is also one way for journalists to protect themselves and for them to respond faster in case of threats.
Sullivan, however, reminded journalists that “no story is worth your life” as he added that if journalists want to protect themselves, they must not forget to do “good journalism.”
