Journalists ensure accountability and transparency in a society. An attack against them is an attack against our right to truth and the right to be fully informed.

The Commission on Human Rights denounces recent reports of red tagging of journalists particularly Leonardo Vicente “Cong” Corales, the former director of the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP), Froilan Gallardo of Mindanews, and other members of the press who are being harassed and linked to the communist armed movement.

Previous threats against them continue to escalate as they are being targeted for bounty and being accused of alleged involvement in criminal cases through concerted vilification campaign from indeterminate groups.

The Commission calls on members of the security forces in Cagayan de Oro and Northern Mindanao to conduct investigations on these reports and ensure the protection of identified targets. The CHR is also investigating the matter.

We in the Commission underscores that journalism is essential to peace, sustainable development, and justice as reporters are the ones going to the most dangerous places to deliver us information and give voice to the most marginalised sectors. There is a need to ensure a safe and enabling media environment to foster a free and balanced reporting of the real state of affairs in the country and to hold people in power to account. And of course, there is no complete democracy without a genuine media freedom.