Investigating Power and Money – A Deadly Mix for Journalists

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Investigating Power and Money – A Deadly Mix for Journalists

Saturday, 19 February 2011

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Silenced forever: Palawan journalist Gerardo "Doc Gerry" Ortega (right) being interviewed by a media colleague in this file photo taken two months ago at the arrival of the Balangay fleet in Puerto Princesa. He was about to report a serious corruption issue when he was killed January 24. KATYA SANTOS

Gerardo “Doc Gerry” Ortega, a radio broadcaster and environmentalist from Palawan, was shot dead here on January 24, 2011. He was number 142 in a seemingly never-ending roster of Filipino journalists killed in the line of duty since the end of martial law.

Five days after his death and after the surrender of a suspect who has implicated an alleged mastermind – a very well-known political figure, I received a call from the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group handling the case.

They advised me to arrange security protection. They had determined that there were supposedly two targets, the second to follow a week after the first hit. The CIDG concluded I was “most likely” to be 143.

Five years ago, another Palawan radio broadcaster, Fernando “Dong” Batul, was shot and killed here in an ambush while on his way to work. While a suspected triggerman was charged, the identity of the mastermind still eludes the authorities.

Back then, at least two other journalists based in Puerto Princesa decided to relocate

in fear of their lives.

It is being claimed that Doc Gerry’s murder was premeditated and planned as early as five or six months previously. The accused mastermind, former Palawan Governor Joel T. Reyes, faces a life sentence if convicted, along with former Marinduque Governor Antonio Carreon and several others. All deny any responsibility whatsoever for the killing.

That’s as maybe – for now, I am forced to move around with a bodyguard.

Risks

As is now well-known, Ortega was the anchor of a daily radio program where he repeatedly tackled issues of graft and corruption of government officials and offices. At the same time he was a strong opponent of the local mining industry and a human rights advocate.

What is most significant in the case of Ortega was that he was on the verge of a major expose of corruption.

I had been working with Gerry for several months gathering information about the Malampaya gas funds amounting to close to PhP 3 billion (USD 68 million) that went to Palawan in the past five years and how these monies have been spent. The Commission on Audit has, by the time of this writing, completed a special audit of these funds and the report is due to be published shortly. It is expected to come down hard and claim serious wrongdoings by government functionaries.

More than just the dirty laundry that the COA report is poised to reveal, the fallout of this controversy is sure to impact on the pending decision of the Supreme Court on whether to award Palawan its rightful share of the Malampaya royalty. The question is whether Palawan has a rightful claim over gas and energy fields located offshore.

A favorable ruling by the Supreme Court will render Palawan the country’s richest local government administration. Forty percent of annual gas royalty amounts to over PhP 4 billion (USD 91 million) annually based on production estimates from Malampaya alone. And there are at least five or six other offshore concessions that have commercial quantities of oil and gas.

Palawan is set to become not just rich but extremely rich.

The political stakes come into play.

This is not necessarily concluding that Ortega’s murder has anything to do with Malampaya. It simply poses a hypothesis that this is one of the most plausible reasons for why he was killed.

Perhaps it is a case of the moth coming too close to the fire.

Whatever the ultimate truth, it remains fact that journalists in the Philippines who investigate issues pertaining to money and power run very serious risks given the prevalence of guns, the seeming cheapness of life and endemic problems with the national justice system. When reporters threaten vested political and economic interests,

the repercussions can prove deadly. As the killing of Ortega clearly shows, even the fact that you are well-known and hugely popular proves to be no defense whatsoever.

Palawan is known as a peaceful place, a scenic getaway for holiday makers wanting to get a respite from polluted cities like Manila. It has near zero insurgency problems which means there is no threat of being abducted in the forests while trekking, or being mistaken for insurgents by military patrols.

But the irony is the fact that Palawan’s natural resources seems to have infected

political life here in a deadly way.

When I first came here as a journalist 15 years ago, there was no talk of Malampaya or mining. The headline in a local radio morning news roundup was about one of its two Congressmen flying in that day from Manila.

"So, what is the news there? I remember asking myself, laughing.

It was then a laid back town with little news for a journalist to bite on.

How things have changed. Today with serious money in play, the stakes are very high and deadly --as the presence of my bodyguard now reminds me every day. Philippine Public Transparency Reporting Project

(The author is a correspondent of the Philippine Daily Inquirer and the chairman of the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines-Palawan Chapter.)

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