A policeman has been sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of Philippines journalist Edgar Damalerio in May 2002.
Three and a half years after the murder of Edgar Damalerio, the justice system has finally cleared a major hurdle in this case, marked by the murder of three witnesses and impunity for those who instigated the killing.The Cebu regional trial court on Tuesday gave weight to the testimony of Edgar Ongue, a farmer who witnessed the murder of Damalerio in Pagadian city in the southern island of Mindanao. Damalerio was managing editor and columnist of weekly newspaper Zamboanga Scribe and a commentator with radio dxKP. He was killed on the night of May 13, 2002, on his way home from a press conference.
Ongue testified that he and another witness, Edgar Amoro, were riding in the vehicle Damalerio was driving when two men on board a motorcycle pulled up beside them. One of the men, ex-policeman Guillermo Wapile, pointed a gun at Damalerio and shot him. Damalerio died before reaching the hospital.
Amoro, meanwhile, was killed before he could appear in court. His death prompted Damalerio's family to ask for the transfer of the trial from Pagadian city to Cebu city in April. Since Damalerio's murder, his family and witnesses had lived in fear as they were targeted in successive murder attempts. Three other witnesses were killed. Leonido Buhisan, the policeman who first responded to the crime, was killed in 2004. Rudy Garcia, who witnessed the actual shooting, was murdered in 2003. Jeffrey Cervantes, another eyewitness, was killed in 2004.
The National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP) hailed the verdict as a victory for press freedom. The chairman of the NUJP Commission for the Protection of Journalists, Jose Torres Jr, said, "The resolution of the Damalerio case is only a small victory if seen against the continuing harassments and killings of journalists in the past two years."
"We can jail all the killers, but until those behind the killings are unmasked and punished for their crimes, press freedom in this country will continue to be threatened," Torres said. The resolution of the Damalerio case proved that if the media unites and fights for justice and press freedom nothing was impossible, he added. Torres said the government should address more than 70 other unsolved cases of killings of journalists since 1986, the year when former president Ferdinand Marcos was toppled.
Press freedom organisation Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) said, "Without the huge courage of chief witness Edgar Ongue and the journalist's wife Gemma Damalerio and the tenacity of journalist Edgar Amoro  another witness who was himself murdered in February 2005  this murder would have gone unpunished as have scores of others in the Philippines."
The court, presided by Ramon Codilla, rejected false evidence given by several of Guillermo Wapile's associates, including policemen who tried to bolster his defence. The former policeman, who had several lawyers in his defence team, had pleaded not guilty."Three and a half years after the murder, the justice system has finally cleared a major hurdle in this case, marked by the murder of three witnesses and total impunity for those who instigated the killing," RSF said. "The heavy sentence against this criminal, for so long protected by his superiors, is a victory," the organisation said.
"But it should not overshadow the horrifying impunity that reigns in the country. It is a great shame that the investigation and the trial should have been limited to the murder itself with no attempt made to identify those who instigated the killing," RSF said.
Gemma Damalerio told RSF, "Almost four years after my husband's murder, we have finally obtained justice. It is a victory for all those in the Philippines and throughout the world who fought for Edgar". The journalist's widow has been nominated for the Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) 2005 prize in the "press freedom defender" category.
Delivering his 12-page verdict, the judge stressed the crucial importance of the evidence given by Ongue. The court, presided by Ramon Codilla, rejected false evidence given by several of Wapile's associates, including policemen who tried to bolster his defence. The former policeman, who had several lawyers in his defence team, had pleaded not guilty.
Police in Pagadian failed to even try to identify Wapile's accomplices or to hunt for those who ordered him to carry out the killing. Asuri Hawani, a police officer who constantly protected his former junior officer, was recently appointed security adviser to the mayor of Pagadian. Moreover, the investigation into the murder of Amoro has now stalled, despite promises to the contrary given to RSF by justice minister Raul M Gonzalez.
