Media freedom advocates in the Philippines scored a rare victory this week when a court convicted an alleged gunman in the killing of broadcaster Miguel Belen.
Eric Vargas, 38, was given a 40-year-prison sentence for the 2010 murder of Belen, a field reporter for a radio station in Iriga City, some 400 km south of the capital Manila.
It was Belen himself who identified Vargas as the one driving the motorcycle with a woman pillion rider with a gun. The killer, identified as Gina Bagacina, remains at large.
Belen had eight gunshot wounds to various parts of his body. He remained in a critical condition for 22 days until his death. No motive for the killing has been established.
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Killers of journalists in the Philippines almost always elude justice.
According to the Philippine Centre for Investigative Journalism, only 14 of the 172 such cases filed in court after the Philippines’ People Power revolution in 1986 have ended in a conviction.
The country’s president, Benigno Aquino III, has said that his administration is pursuing the prosecution of those behind the killings “with the end in view of arresting every culprit regardless of whether the victim was a media individual, an activist, or any other individual”.
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Despite these fine words, convictions have been rare while the body count has steadily risen: 30 journalists have been murdered since Aquino took office in 2010.
Even worse, not a single mastermind of these killings has been prosecuted and convicted.
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