Media groups launch
‘Roadshow vs. Impunity’

MEDIA GROUPS from all over the country have launched a series of activities to press the Philippine government to address the continuing problem of media murders and the slow grind of the wheels of justice in the country.

The campaign, dubbed The Roadshow to End Impunity, includes the screening of specially-produced documentaries on media killings in several journalism schools in Metro Manila. The documentary screening kicks off other activities that culminate in a march by media groups to Mendiola on November 23, 2011, the second anniversary of the Maguindanao Massacre that saw the deaths of 58 people, including 32 journalists. November 23 has also been declared the International Day to End Impunity by international media organizations.

The campaign was launched by the Freedom Fund for Filipino Journalists (FFFJ) together with the Center for Media Freedom and the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism. Joining in the campaign are other media organizations such as the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines, the Philippine Press Institute, the Kapisanan ng mga Brodkaster ng Pilipinas, and various schools and student organizations.

The roadshow began with the screening of PCIJ documentaries on media killings at the College of Mass Communications at the University of the Philippines in Diliman last November 15. Mass communications students crowded the CMC auditorium to listen to representatives from the PCIJ, NUJP, and FFFJ as they briefed the audience on the status of the cases of media murders.

This was followed with another screening of PCIJ documentaries on media killings at the JPL Hall at the Lyceum University in Intramuros on November 17. More than 200 students from various universities in the Manila area crowded into the auditorium and asked a variety of questions, from the status of the media murder cases, to the issue of safety for journalists all over the country.

The Roadshow continues on Monday, November 21, with a documentary screening at the Polytechnic University of the Philippines (PUP) College of Mass Communications in Sta. Mesa Manila at one in the afternoon.

This will be followed by the final school screening of the PCIJ media killing documentaries on November 23 at the University of Sto. Tomas Tan Yan Kee Student Center audiovisual room at 12:30 p.m. The screening at UST will be followed by a torch parade of concerned media groups to Mendiola bridge for brief ceremonies commemorating the 2009 Maguindanao Massacre. Assembly point for the march will be along Espana Blvd. fronting UST at 4:30 p.m.

The FFFJ and PCIJ had also distributed a set of public service advertisements for television for the use of all broadcast stations in the country. The PSAs were distributed online for free, in line with the objective of letting a mass audience understand and take a stand on the issue of media killings.

The PSAs have been uploaded on www.mediafire.com. Each link, about 150-mb in file size, features broadcast-quality video that broadcast stations can readily air on television or post on their websites.

Please download the PSAs from these links: