Blackmoor Vituperative

The journalists in Mindanao are asking the authorities to allow them to carry firearms for self-protection.

After learning a bitter lesson from the tragedy of the Maguindanao massacre on November 23 where 57 people were murdered in cold blood at the Ampatuan town, 31 of whom were members of the media, “the advocacy for arming of reporters by many members of the Fourth Estate in the South has intensified,” according to a high official of a media organization on Tuesday.

John Felix Unson, chairman of the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP) for Central Mindanao, said “there has been a long record of killings of reporters in provinces and cities around Maguindanao.”

Unson who writes for Philippine Star was himself ambushed in Cotabato City by unidentified armed men on May 28, 1999. He had his caliber .357 mm [sic] revolver with him at the time and was able to return fire. The armed men retreated. Not a single bullet they fired hit the journalist.

[…]

“The best way for us to protect ourselves is to arm ourselves because neither the police nor the military can give us protection on a 24-hour, round-the-clock basis,” said Macabalang, now executive director of the Bureau of Public Information in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.

(from Mindanao journalists want to carry guns, The Manila Times)

I hear you, Macabalang. I hear you.