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SAFETY

FOR ALL JOURNALISTS!

For more than a decade now, the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP) has been helping train colleagues throughout the country as the media community continues to seek ways to keep its members safe in what remains one of the most dangerous places in the world to practice journalism.

However, as the situation constantly changes, lessons from a few years back might no longer apply.

A painful example would be the November 23, 2009 Ampatuan massacre, which shattered everything we once believed about safety in numbers. More recently, the weaponizing of technology and the digital realm by the enemies of freedom of the press and of expression has given rise to new and insidious cyber threats.

This is the reason we constantly need to review and adjust our safety protocols to adapt to the ever-changing milieu.

Admittedly, training and review courses are expensive to mount regularly.

This is why we have developed the Philippine Journalists’ Safety Guide.

Journalists can download and refer to this online resource, developed with the generous assistance of our partners at Internews and further developed under the Initiative for Media Freedom (IMF), a project supported by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), when they find themselves in trouble, heading out on hazardous assignments, or just to update their practical knowledge of media safety.

And because it is online, it can be easily and regularly updated as well.

However, we stress that the Safety Guide is not intended to replace formal safety training, which we strongly urge colleagues to take, and the organizational support the NUJP and other media groups offer.

Keep safe everyone.

Nonoy Espina
Chairperson
National Union of Journalists of the Philippines
July 2018, updated January 2020