CLAD in black and white t-shirts printed with the now very familiar message “Stop Killing The Journalists”, Pangasinan newsmen joined their colleagues nationwide in staging a prayer rally as part of the continued and growing call for justice for their 30 fellow journalists who were massacred in Maguindanao.

Members of three local media groups in the province for the first time jointly prayed the rosary and lit candles during the vigil held Wednesday evening in front of the City Museum in Dagupan.

PUNCH columnist Gonzalo Duque president of the Lyceum Northwestern University that was recently cited as Outstanding Private School in Region 1 for Human Rights Education, called for the creation of an independent commission composed of non-partisan people with integrity to look into the gruesome crime which also involved the murder of 27 other people.

Duque said the Maguindano massacre may end up not being solved or could be repeated if the government does not dismantle private armies across the country.

Meanwhile, Anda Mayor Nestor Pulido, former president of the Pangasinan Press and Radio Club Inc., also joined the event and said, ” If you want  dictatorship, kill all media people but if you want to live a democratic life where you can think what you can think, where you can say what you want to say, then  fight for democracy, fight  for newspapermen, fight for the media”.

His daughter, television broadcaster-on-leave Maki Pulido who is eyeing a congressional seat in Pangasinan, urged people to remain vigilant and called on her colleagues to remain as the watchdog of government to prevent abuses.

The presidents of Kapisanan ng mga Brodkaster ng Pilipinas-Pangasinan chapter, Pangasinan Press Club and Pangasinan Tri-Media Association led by Bernie Errasuqin, Allan Sison and Gabriel Cardinoza, respectively, also read their group’s statements against the killings.

Mass Communication students from different universities in the province also joined the prayer rally.#

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