Herson Hinolan

In the Philippines, witnesses to journalist murders face extreme pressures and grave risk. The government’s protection program, while valuable, falls short of ensuring justice. By Shawn W. Crispin

New York, March 7, 2008—The Committee to Protect Journalists welcomes the surrender of a suspect to police in the 2004 murder of Filipino broadcaster Herson Hinolan, but is concerned that the move comes shortly after the withdrawal of an important prosecution witness from the case.

Alfredo Arcenio, a former mayor of the town of Lezo, turned himself in to the Regional Trial Court in the nearby town of Kalibo, about 215 miles (345 kilometers) south of Manila on Wednesday. He immediately applied for bail, according to local news reports. Arcenio had been missing since a warrant for his arrest was issued in September 2006, according to the Web site of the Visayan Daily Star. Arcenio denies he was involved in the murder.

Here are the Philippine journalists killed in connection with their work since 2000, as documented by the Committee to Protect Journalists.

Manila, Philippines, June 26, 2005—Despite Philippine government claims that it has solved more than half of journalist murders since 1986, a joint mission by the Committee to Protect Journalists and the Southeast Asian Press Alliance has found that the official definition of "solved cases" is misleading, that justice has not been served in the vast majority of cases, and that journalists in remote provinces remain vulnerable to fatal attacks.

The Five Most Murderous Countries for Journalists

The Philippines

Although the Philippines has one of the freest presses in Asia, the country was the deadliest in the region for journalists for the second consecutive year. Eight journalists—primarily rural radio broadcasters—were gunned down in retaliation for their work in 2004. (Five reporters died in the line of duty in 2003, according to CPJ research.) Worldwide, the media casualty rate in the Philippines was second only to Iraq.

New York, November 15, 2004—The Committee to Protect Journalists strongly condemns the two fatal attacks on Philippine journalists over the weekend, the latest killings in an already record-breaking year for violence against the press in the Philippines.

An unidentified gunman shot photographer Gene Boyd Lumawag, of the MindaNews news service, in the head, killing him instantly on Friday, November 12, in Jolo, the capital of the southern Sulu Province.