Journos to gather for drafting of safety action plan on March 27

CLARK FREEPORT— Journalists from across Luzon will gather at the Xenia Hotel in this Freeport on Wednesday, March 27 for the Regional Multi-Stakeholder Consultation Workshop on the Drafting of the Philippine Plan of Action on the Safety of Journalists.

The gathering is part of a series of regional consultations in Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao, which will provide concrete recommendations on what to integrate into the plan of action. Suggestions may include safety structures and mechanisms, policies, and training programs, among others.

During the consultation, participants will be organized into five workshop groups to cover the following topics, guided by the framework of protection, prevention, prosecution, and partnershi p.

These include advocacy and mobilization: awareness raising, lobbying, partnerships, and coalition building; policy and legal framework: standard set t i n g, policymaking, and legal structures; monitoring, reporting, and response mechanisms; capacity building; and research and publications.

The workshop is significant given the central role of print media organizations in ensuring the security of journalists and media workers so that they may continue to exercise their duty as watchdogs of society. With the workshop, the Philippines can become the first

country in the world to have its own plan of action based on that of the United Nations (UN).

The Safeguarding Press Freedom in the Philippines Project was recently launched to mobilize multi-stakeholder engagement in creating an enabling environment for press freedom and a sustainable safety and protection mechanism for Filipino journalists.

One of the main project outputs is the Philippine Plan of Action on the Safety of Journalists (PPASJ). The first event on the crafting of the PPASJ was a Multi-Stakeholder Consultation conducted on November 7, 2018. It was attended by over 80 participants from civil society, research agencies, media organizations, and government institutions.

Spearheading the crafting of the Plan is the Journalist Safety Advisory Group (JSAG) composed of the Center for Community Journalism and Development (CCJD), Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility (CMFR), National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP), and the Philippine Press Institute (PPI). The project is implemented by the Asian Institute of Journalism and Communication (AIJC) and International Media Support (IMS) with funding from the European Union and the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs.— JTD