Families of Murdered Filipino Journalists Left Traumatized

I’m entering a narrow corridor that leads to a small dark apartment.

This is where 43-year-old Editha Bico lives with her three children... now without their father.

”It was raining outside. But I ran as fast as I could... I found my dying husband, being stared at by frightened onlookers.”

Editha’s husband, Vergel Bico, was shot twice in the head by two gunmen just a few meters away from their house.

He was riding his motorcycle, bringing back fish for their dinner that day.

“We’re afraid. Every time we hear the sound of a motorcycle, we remember the killing. My children can’t believe that their father is now gone. They’ve stopped playing. They stare blankly in sadness. Sometimes they have nightmares too.”

Vergel Bico was a writer for local newspaper circulating in Calapan City.

Some believe he was gunned down for his recent article on illegal gambling.

Bico was the second journalist murdered that week. The other one, Fernando Solijon, was a radio commentator who often cricitised local politicians in his show.

Editha was not prepared for losing her husband so soon.

”He mentioned death threats, but when I asked, he wouldn’t give me any details. He didn’t want me to interfere in his job. He would tell me to stay away. Sometimes I blame myself. If he were alive, I’d have insisted he told me more about his work.”

Senior journalist, Juancho Mahusay, is Vico’s friend.

He says a journalist’s job is a dangerous one... and this is something the family should understand.

“The honest-to-goodness or the legitimate journalist, in the pursuit of their activity, receive some different forms of threats – death, illegal suit, whatever. So if the situations are fully known to their children and wife, maybe some kind of traumatic attitude will be suffered by the family. For me, the most difficult, the most vulnerable to many threats, from death to legal suits, are the local journalists or those in the provinces.”

According to the National Union of Journalists, nearly 160 journalists have been killed in the Philippines since the fall of former dictator Ferdinand Marcos in 1986.

The people behind these murders have never been put in jail.

These murders leave behind deeply traumatized wives and children, who are not prepared for losing their loved ones.

Rowena Paraan is a Union chairperson assisting Bico’s family.

“We have psycho-social activities for the surviving spouses. We noticed that a lot of the wives were not very familiar with the kind of work that their husbands, usually broadcasters, were doing. So when they are killed, the impact is much greater, the trauma is much deeper... because they have no idea how their loved ones could be killed in such a brutal way.”

The police have created a special task force to look into Vergel Bico’s case.

But with an increasing number of unresolved killings, justice for journalists may be a long way off.

Rowena hopes that the local media will soon start working with family members to let them learn more about the  dangers involved in their jobs.

But it’s too late for Editha Bico and her three children...

“It’s difficult to become a single parent. I don’t know how long the pain and sleepless nights will last. I just embrace my children tightly and tell them to be good…. that this will be over one day; and we should stay together. I have to stay strong  for them.”