Impunity's Roots

IMPUNITY - OR exemption from punishment - has been correctly called a culture, a way of doing things to which a particular community has become accustomed. It is almost inevitably mentioned as the primary reason why journalists and political activists continue to be killed in the Philippines, where a culture of impunity has indeed taken root. But it also applies with equal validity to the killing of nearly everyone else, especially the poor and powerless. Few murders in this country are ever really solved, with the perpetrators and masterminds being arrested, tried and punished.

Contrary to the common perception that only the wealthy and powerful literally get away with murder, it also happens even to the poorest folk. If the wealthy and well-connected can evade punishment by hiring crafty lawyers, and bribing policemen, prosecutors and judges, those who are otherwise, if they're lucky enough, can escape the law by simply disappearing in the vast countryside that surrounds the cities, or in the anonymous warrens and labyrinthine slums the poorest call home. Police inefficiency and reluctance to hunt down killers, if the victims are "not important" and won't be missed except by their closest kin, does the rest.
But what makes the killing of political activists different from common murders is that it has been, for a very long time, part of the government's anti-insurgency policy, which makes no distinction between the armed combatants of the New People's Army, and the members of legal organizations with aims similar to those of the Communist Party of the Philippines which commands the NPA.

The policy has resulted in the killing of over a thousand men and women from various sectors: students and teachers, farmers and workers, progressive local officials and leaders of non-governmental organizations, priests and pastors, lawyers and judges. The policy has not only cost the country the lives of citizens that in other societies would be cherished for the consistency and courage of their convictions. It has also further enshrined the culture of impunity that fuels the violence and lawlessness rampant throughout Philippine society.

It was only a matter of time before the policy was equally applied to journalists by its evil architects and the mindless brutes that implement it. While the killing of journalists has primarily been due to the weaknesses of the justice system - among them police inefficiency and collusion with the killers, the shortage in, and indifference of local prosecutors - it had not been government orchestrated.