IT has been three years since the Maguindanao Massacre happened.

Media institutions and groups since the other day have been holding activities to remind people of that nightmarish event.

Most of them media people, many of them women, the victims were murdered by members and goons of the powerful Ampatuan political clan on November 23, 2009.

Today’s activities include 10 a.m. Mass to pray for honest, orderly and peaceful elections (HOPE 2013) next year at the San Agustin Church. Several groups, including Catholic bishops, priests and lay leaders, students, political personalities and candidates for elective positions are participating in this activity. The Maguindanao Massacre was a case of election-related violence. The 58 victims were killed and buried in a mass grave because they were marching to accompany the wife of a provincial politician file her husband’s certificate of candidacy for governor against the leader of the Ampatuan clan.

After the Mass, the congregation will walk from San Agustin Church to the Commission on Election HQ in Intramuros to present an appeal to the officials of the poll body to really ensure that the 2013 election is clean and free —free from fraud and from powerful warlords’ terrorist acts to guarantee their candidates’ victory. Terrorist atrocity is what the Ampatuan clan members and goons perpetrated three years ago.

Terrorist atrocities since 1946
But from the very first elections of our Republic got back its independence from the United States in 1946, powerful political clans and groups have been committing terrorist violence against their opponents and the electorate. They have been committing atrocities with impunity.

These powerful clans have persisted for decades because national political parties and alliances need them. Liberal Party leader Franklin Drilon yesterday apologized for the party’s having allowed many Ampatuan clan and political leaders to become LP candidates. He explained that the LP’s national office has no real control over what happens in the party’s chapters in the provinces. He claimed to have given instructions to withdraw LP authorization for the candidacy of politicians identified with the Ampatuan clan and organization.

But one could sense, hearing him talk over the broadcast networks, that it was not a simple case of dropping Ampatuan names from the LP roll of candidates. In the first place, those Ampatuan-clan politicians would not have been entered by the local LP chapters as their candidates if they had no massive clout in their localities. Will the LP central HQ impose its will on the local chapter even if it means giving up the winning votes for the LP’s senatorial candidates in those towns and provinces in Mindanao?

And will the local Comelec officers remove those Ampatuan candidates just on the say-so of the LP national he quarters?

March to the Supreme Court
At 1:30 p.m. today media organizations will start to assemble at the National Press Club ground and prepare to march to the Supreme Court and after that cross the Pasig and march to Mendiola. They will start this activity with a candle-lighting ceremony at the Maguindanao Massacre commemorative marker at the NPC ground. Some brief statements will be made to air the people’s disappointment over the slow pace of the court proceedings. They will also call on President Aquino to do as he had promised to the families of the victims—that he would move to have justice done swiftly.

Meanwhile, the marchers will at this time also be ready with 32 mock coffins and an 11-foot tall “Impunity Monster” effigy. The marchers will bear the coffins and the effigy throughout their route to the Supreme Court and to Mendiola.

In front of the Supreme Court—or wherever the marchers are allowed by the police to congregate—there will be a brief program. The marchers will air their grievances over the High Court’s decision forbidding live media coverage of the Maguindanao Massacre trial.

Then the marchers will proceed to Mendiola and at the foot of the bridge burn the effigy of “Impunity Monster.”

Another activity, sponsored by the National Press Club and Kodao Productions, is the screening at 6 p.m. at SM Manila Cinema 9 of the film “Deadline.” Directed by Joel Lamangan, the film is a story about media killings. Allen Dizon, Lovi Poe, and TJ Trinidad are among the actors in this movie.

The killing of journalists in the Philippines has made our country less respectable despite its economic successes. Unfortunately, global businessmen’s opinion does not care enough for murdered media workers.

This should, however, not be a mentality our high officials, including our President, should share.

In 2003 the commendable Freedom Fund for Filipino Journalists, Inc. (FFFJ) was started. Melinda Quintos de Jesus, the chairperson of the Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility, which has been at the forefront of recording in detail the killing of journalists and spearheading the campaign against impunity, describes FFFJ as “a network of Philippine news and media-orientated organizations that responds to each reported murder with a CMFR case study, a fact-finding mission when necessary, and an emergency fund and humanitarian assistance to victim’s families. The group is also involved in continuing advocacy, holding various campaigns to share information and make the public more aware of what we now call ‘a culture of impunity.’ “

Mrs. De Jesus also writes that, “In the Philippines, we have gained ten convictions in the ten years since FFFJ’s launching in January 2003. But there have been in that same period of time, 85 journalists and media workers killed. We cannot claim to have even made a dent on the culture of violence and impunity. Sadly, we have not seen the end of these killings and attacks.”

We believe, with CMFR, the international Human Rights Watch, and all the media organizations in our country, that if only President Aquino would act firmly against warlords and the groups that have been identified as masters and monsters of impunity, the convictions will increase.

And the Philippines will be a much better country.