DOJ okay of guidelines on media killings hailed

Media players, particularly from the ranks of the Publishers Association of the Philippines Inc. (PAPI), hailed the recent approval by Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre of the Implementing Guidelines for Malacañang’s Administrative Order No. 1 (AO 1) creating the Presidential Task Force on Media Security (PTFOMS).

Signed and issued by President Rodrigo Duterte immediately after he assumed office, the order was in response to a Human Rights Watch World Report that the Philippines remains one of the most dangerous places in the world for journalists, and that extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances remain a serious problem and rarely result in successful prosecution and punishment of perpetrators.