On average seven journalists have been killed every year in the Philippines since Cory Aquino came to power. David Robie reports on a record of intimidation that is even worse than under the Marcos regime.
By David Robie in The Dominion
Death threats are all part of the job for Filipino journalist Edgar Cadagat. Bullets in the mail, “Your days are numbered” pamphlets, potshots and threatening phone calls are uncomfortably frequent.
Once, when the threats became too hot, Cadagat and his colleagues sandbagged the plate glass windows of their news agency office in Bocolod City on the central island of Negros.
But nithing has quite matched the Christmas “gift” Cadagat received in December. Arriving by special delivery from a private mail firm, he was immediately suspicious when the bulky looking envelope was put on his desk.
“I thought it was a bomb at first,” recalls Cadagat, a correspondent for international news agencies and a key official in the Union of Journalists of the Philippines. It turned out to be a cardboard miniature coffin.
- Read the full article at Academia.edu. Published in The Dominion, 22 Febuary 1991.
