MANILA, Philippines — To mark the beginning of a fresh chapter in safeguarding press freedom in the country, the Presidential Task Force on Media Security (PTFoMS) has introduced a new approach in the campaign to end impunity by combining the twin efforts of ensuring the delivery of justice for victims of attacks and promoting the professional and economic welfare of journalists.

Dubbed “PTFoMS 2020: Reinforced, Reloaded,” the campaign will usher in more vigorous and active engagements with media workers as well as future journalists around the country.

It will be launched in Tacloban City by the end of the month.

“The Task Force will also continue to be more relentless and proactive when it comes to protecting the life, liberty and security of media workers. Besides running after so-called enemies of press freedom as we have done in the previous years, we will also strongly push for the enactment of the Media Workers Welfare Bill under House Bill 2476, which seeks to uplift both the economic welfare and skills of local journos,” said PTFoMS Executive Director Undersecretary Joel Sy Egco, in a statement on Thursday.

Officials of the Task Force and its media partners will conduct seminars on media safety, welfare, and ethics in various provinces.

Egco said the PTFoMS will be reorganized and will hire additional personnel to man its teams for Luzon, Visayas, Mindanao and the National Capital Region.

“For starters, inter-agency tracker teams will be created soon to intensify the manhunt for the remaining Ampatuan Massacre suspects who are still at large. We will be also be printing “WANTED” posters all over the archipelago in line with this effort,” Egco said.

Earlier, the Palace official declared that the past decade was a “dark chapter in Philippine media history”, owing largely to the infamous massacre that has placed the country among the “most dangerous” in the world for journalists. (Stacy Ang/IAMIGO/Currentph.com)