In memoriam: Journalists lighting candles in memory of their fallen colleagues during the 13th anniversary of the 2009 massacre. — AFP
When news broke that 58 individuals had been massacred in the town of Ampatuan, Maguin-danao province in 2009, then 29-year-old Rowella Dayawan got worried calls from her relatives, asking where she was.
Two of the bodies found on a hilltop on Nov 23 that year were those of women said to be pregnant so the relatives of Dayawan, who was also pregnant with her youngest child, thought one of the victims was her.
Little did they know that she already gave birth on Nov 13 – the reason that Dayawan, a journalist based in Maguindanao, was unable to cover the filing of certificate of candidacy (COC) of Esmael Mangudadatu, then vice-mayor of Buluan town also in Maguindanao, for governor of the province.
Dayawan said two months before the mass murder, considered to be the worst election-related violence in the Philippines, Mangudadatu had already publicly declared what was then considered to be unthinkable – that he would fight the powerful Ampatuan clan at the polls.
“That moment, I told myself there will be trouble (in the next days) because knowing the Ampatuan(s) that time, they are so powerful. Whoever will challenge them will have difficult days ahead,” she said.
Despite being aware of the danger, Dayawan said she would still have covered the relatives of Mangudadatu, who were filing the COC on his behalf, if her due date had been later.
Then on Nov 23, 2009, when 57 bodies were discovered on a hilltop, “I was resting in my room when everyone was calling. They were asking who were the individuals in the convoy and if I was still alive.”
The “single deadliest attack on media”, the massacre ended the lives of 32 journalists, mostly from General Santos City and Koronadal City, who were part of the convoy headed to a Commission on Elections office in Shariff Aguak town.
While fate spared Dayawan, she decided to continue her work as a journalist despite fears for her safety to honour her slain colleagues.
She stressed that “our role is for the truth” and that journalists, as “watchdogs”, should serve the Filipino people by reporting on government wrongdoing.
“We are the ones being asked by the oppressed for help. We are the ones being told of their problems. We can help through our program to call the attention of those in the government. We are the hope of the disadvantaged people,” she said.
Dayawan is now in her 21st year as a broadcast reporter and is still covering the province which had already been split into two – Maguindanao del Norte and Maguindanao del Sur – by a law that was ratified this year.
But even until now, 13 years since the mass murder, she said journalists are still unsafe.
“Here in Maguindanao, if you are too critical of the wrongdoings of those in power, your life is threatened.” — Philippine Daily Inquirer/ANN
