The Paris-based press freedom watch group Reporters Sans Frontieres (RSF–Reporters Without Borders) seemed perplexed last December, 2004. As the year ended with one more journalist in the Philippines shot dead, it said that, “for some still unclear reason,” more journalists seem likely to be killed in 2005.
RSF’s perplexity was understandable. Philippine democracy was supposedly restored in 1986, and the Philippine Constitution of 1987–one of the few in the world to do so–forbids the passage of any law abridging press freedom. Continue reading