by Prime Sarmiento

 

 

  The subtitle should have read why I’m blogging to observe the International Day to End Impunity which is being held today, November 23, 2011, the second year anniversary of the still unresolved Maguindanao massacre. 
 
  And while you can usually read about my journeys and adventures here, I have to go off track a bit and just for a moment, think what I do for a living and what today means to me as a journalist, gypsygal, human being.
 
  It’s difficult for me to separate my personal writing space (writing in my travel blog) with my professional writing (a.k.a. journalism a.k.a. sitting in the desk all day editing for a news agency). How could I when it’s my passion for writing that spurred me to choose journalism as a means to earn a living and put up a travel blog as a means to have a life and (re)discover my writing voice? (I’m soo bored with the debate over blogging vs journalism. It’s stupid, useless and ridiculous. Please get a life!!!)
 
But what if journalism means something more than a passion or a livelihood?
 
What if for some, being a journalist means being committed to the ideals of truth, justice, equality?
 
What if in the course of doing your job as a journalist – like exposing corrupt officials – you got hurt, or worse killed?
 
What if your husband, daughter, mother, friend was one of the journalists who were slayed in the Maguindanao massacre?
 
What if after two years of fighting, hoping, praying, crying, mourning – you’re still in square, waiting for justice, for the perpetrators of the murder to pay for their sins?
What if you live in a country that prides itself for having the freest press in Asia and yet so many journalists get murdered for doing their job?
 
And what if you are not a journalist? You might think this has nothing to do with you.
Well not really.
 
This is also about YOU.
 
  About your right as a human being, about your freedom to speak up, to express your views, to blog about whatever that fancies you (whether about your latest travel adventures, your cute pet cats or your outrage over the unresolved killing of journalists in the Philippines and around the world).
 
Imagine if you can’t blog.
 
Imagine if you get death threats because you blog.
 
Imagine if you were murdered because you blogged.
 
Reflect on this for a moment.
 
  Still there? If you want to know what you can do to stop this injustice, you can start by clicking here and do you part to support the International Day to End Impunity. Let us all do our part in defending our right to express ourselves.