A macabre political thriller recently unfolded in the Philippine province of Palawan, an island known mostly for its rich biodiversity and pristine beaches. On May 9, Joel T Reyes, a suspect in the 2011 murder of well-known radio broadcaster Gerry Ortega, ran again for governor. Had Mr Reyes won, the possibilities for Ortega's family to obtain justice for the killing would have dwindled. Fortunately for them, he lost.
Although episodes like the Ortega murder might seem extreme, they are more common than many realise. Powerful authoritarian elites such as Mr Reyes, supported by a political milieu that often guarantees them impunity, pose the deadliest threat to journalists.
Ortega was fatally shot after he publicly accused Mr Reyes, Palawan's governor from 2002 to 2011, of embezzlement. All members of the hit squad were soon arrested and subsequently confessed to the killing. But, despite evidence that Mr Reyes ordered the murder, prosecutors refrained from indicting him. The middleman in the scheme, Rodolfo Edrad, implicated Mr Reyes as the mastermind and was placed under witness protection. However, prosecutors found Mr Edrad's testimony to be uncorroborated. Prosecutors decided that text messages sent by Mr Reyes to Mr Edrad shortly before and after the murder -- including one that read, "Hopefully, upon my return, the problem is over" -- could not be used as evidence.
A decade-long legal battle between Ortega's family and Mr Reyes ensued. A newly appointed prosecutorial team accepted the text message as evidence and resumed the case, after which Mr Reyes fled to Vietnam. Although a court of appeals later ruled that the second prosecutorial panel was illegitimate, a new bench of that same court ordered in 2019 that the trial should proceed. But the warrant for Mr Reyes's arrest, filed last year, was temporarily lifted, enabling him to campaign openly for the governorship. Meanwhile, Ortega's family, their lawyers, and the Office of the Solicitor General have formally requested the Supreme Court to order Mr Reyes' immediate arrest -- a step supported by global press-freedom organisations.
Whether Mr Reyes is prosecuted soon has important implications for press freedom in the Philippines. The country currently ranks 147th in Reporters Without Borders' World Press Freedom Index, not least because of the lack of safety for journalists. Widespread impunity or partial impunity for their killings is a security concern for all journalists in the Philippines.
In young democracies with relatively weak institutions, authoritarian subnational leaders can rule in ways some national-level autocrats can only dream of. Clientelism and patronage give them the means to win elections and sometimes plunder public resources. This phenomenon has been evident for decades in the Philippines, where, to take just one example, the Osmena family has enjoyed dynastic preeminence in Cebu province. But it occurs in other countries, too.
In Mexico, the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) had ruled the state of Veracruz for almost a century when Javier Duarte, the governor from 2010-16, became the party's poster child for corruption after embezzling millions of dollars in public money.
In such contexts, journalists like Ortega are democracy's last hope. Authoritarian local leaders still care about their image, since a loss of face might lead central institutions to intervene. The cloning and distribution of fake versions of critical news magazines by the former state government of Quintana Roo in Mexico was a clumsy attempt to manage its image and silence dissent. The murder of journalists at the behest of such elites is a grimmer point on the continuum of repression.
Without access to accurate, objective information, there can be no free and fair local elections. The fact that democracy is the only game in town at the national level is scant reassurance for those living in a state or province ruled by a local autocrat. In Veracruz under Mr Duarte's administration, for example, 18 journalists were murdered with nearly complete impunity, and state prosecutors have been accused of torturing a local sex worker into falsely confessing to the murder of journalist Regina Martinez Perez.
Unsurprisingly, both executive and judicial institutions are weak in such settings -- how else could these local authoritarian rulers emerge? In the Ortega case in the Philippines, allegations of bribery within the judiciary are rife.
While it is difficult to uncover how and by whom a journalist has been murdered, assessing the exact intentions of local authorities during an investigation can be even tougher. One possible solution is to establish independent prosecutorial bodies to investigate murders of journalists and monitor local implementation of UN guidelines for prosecutors on cases of crimes against journalists. But such efforts require political will from central governments.
Another way to combat impunity for the murder of journalists is through increased efforts to investigate cold cases. The project A Safer World for the Truth -- a collaboration of media groups -- is currently conducting such investigations. New findings can sometimes lead to these cases being reopened.
National leaders who attack independent media -- such as outgoing former US President Donald Trump, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, and Russian President Vladimir Putin -- attract most of the attention. But, as at-risk journalists everywhere will confirm, the local struggle for press freedom and democracy matters just as much. ©2022 Project Syndicate
Jos Midas Bartman is Research Coordinator for A Safer World for the Truth at Free Press Unlimited.