Davao Today was established fifteen years ago by esteemed local journalists as a news outfit that used the internet as a pioneering platform to deliver transformative community journalism by giving voice to the margins. Over the years, it has become an exemplar of community-based journalism providing a platform for Mindanao’s marginalized voices to be heard. It is a SEC-registered institution that operates on the basis of codified by-laws and has its own Board of Trustees that manage and direct its affairs.
We react with grave concern over the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) in their presentation in the December 1 Senate hearing that red-tagged Davao Today and other members of the Altermidya Network. Without evidence, they merely copied the Altermidya list of members and replaced it with a heading that is far from the truth.
We are concerned with this malicious and baseless attempt to taint the integrity of Davao Today in its role as the voice of the Mindanao community. In a national landscape where dissenting voices are increasing and systematically silenced, independent and community-sourced bearers of information have become our last stronghold of democratic practice. Community journalism should flourish to serve the community as Davao Today has been doing. Davao Today and other practitioners of alternative media must be protected and defended, and this can start with calling for an end of red-tagging and defunding NTF-ELCAC to stop its lies and attacks. (davaotoday.com)
