Secure mediamen covering the Marawi armed conflict.
This was the appeal raised by different media organizations in a meeting with the Presidential Task Force on Media Security (PTFoMS) held on Wednesday.
Representatives from six media organizations present during the meeting said that the social media attacks on photojournalist Jes Aznar during his coverage of the Marawi crisis could also happen to the other mediamen who are now deployed in Marawi City.
Those who came to the meeting were representatives of the National Press Club (NPC), Kapisanan ng mga Brodkaster ng Pilipinas (KBP), Publishers Association of the Philippines Inc. (PAPI), Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility (CMFR), National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP) and Philippine Press Institute (PPI).
Media leaders said that Aznar, a photojournalist for New York Times and other international publications, “has been unfairly accused of posting real time on his Facebook the scrimmage between government forces and the Maute group.”
Undersecretary Joel Egco, executive director of PTFoMS that is under the Office of the President, agreed with media leaders on the need to keep journalists “unharmed” during their coverage.
“What is happening to Aznar can have a chilling effect and can happen to other media workers. We don’t want that,” Egco was quoted as saying in a PTFoMS press released dated June 22, 2017.