December 31, 2013 at
11:59pm
NATIONAL UNION OF
JOURNALISTS OF THE PHILIPPINES (NUJP)
Yearend statement
December 31, 2013
We look back at 2013
with sorrow and look forward to the New Year with hope yet, at the same time, a
justified worry that 2014 will portend more of the same bloodshed and impunity,
apathy and hostility as the year we are leaving behind.
It is, indeed, difficult
to hope impunity with which our colleagues continue to be killed, assaulted,
threatened and harassed will end soon or that things may improve a bit under an
administration that brushes off media killings in one of the deadliest years
for the Philippine press -- at least 10 killed, the last three within two weeks
-- as “not so serious.”
Or under a president
who has fallen into the habit of whining about media’s “negativism” whenever
his administration finds itself with mud on its face as he did in the wake of
Yolanda, lumping coverage of that disaster with those on Zamboanga and Bohol
when, in fact, reportage on the two previous disasters had generally been
sympathetic.
All this as
government continues to remain adamantly apathetic to calls for the passage of
laws that would expand the boundaries of freedom of the press and of
expression, such as the Freedom of Information bill and the decriminalization
of libel.
And of course, we
mourn our colleagues who lost their lives delivering information to their
audiences even as super typhoon unleashed its deadly storm surge on Tacloban
City.
Despite this, we do
have reason to hope, not least of all because of the Philippine journalism
community’s steadfast commitment to uphold the principles of the profession
notwithstanding the continuing attempts to stifle us and portray us as a bane
that ought to be stamped out.
We have seen how our
community quickly banded together to aid those among us who felt the lash of
Yolanda.
Yes, as we have said
again and again, the Philippine press remains free because Filipino journalists
keep it free.
But we still have our
work cut out for us. We still urgently need to reconnect with our audiences,
with our people, to help lift them from the state of apathy and ignorance in
which deliberate mal-governance has kept them for generations.
We need to make them
realize that our collective search for genuine justice and freedom as a people,
as a nation, can never be brought to fulfillment without a truly free press
that serves both as foil to official abuse and the source of the information
with which they, we, can build the future we deserve.
We owe this to them
as much as we owe this to ourselves.
For without them, we
can never survive.
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