The newly-formed November 23 Movement composed of journalists’ organizations in the Philippines and the International Federation of Journalists will lead worldwide mass action on Wednesday (Dec. 9) against violent attacks on media and the culture of impunity that has let the masterminds and assassins of the assaults get away.

In Manila, journalists and cause-oriented groups are slated to assemble along Espana Boulevard before marching to the historic Mendiola Bridge.

The protest action will reiterate the call for justice for the victims of the Maguindanao massacre last November 23 and for an independent investigation of the carnage that left 57 people dead, including 30 journalists in what media groups have called the worst attack on working journalists in the entire history of media.

The Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan, New Patriotic Alliance) has expressed support and vowed to participate in the protests. Bayan is the Philippines’ largest multisectoral umbrella of cause-oriented organizations.

Formed soon after the massacre in Maguindanao, the November 23 Movement describes itself as “a loose coalition of media organizations calling for justice to fellow journalists and other innocent civilians who were abducted, slaughtered and hastily buried in mass graves in Ampatuan, Maguindanao on November 23, 2009″.

Even prior to the massacre, the Philippines had been included in lists of the most dangerous and most murderous places for journalists. No mastermind of previous murders of journalists has ever been arrested or prosecuted since Jan. 20, 2001 when Gloria Macapagal Arroyo first assumed the presidency.

Bayan is poised to carry slogans against President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s imposition of martial law in Maguindanao. Lawyers, lawyers’ groups, constitutionalists and jurists have condemned it as a wrong and unconstitutional response to demands for justice. Five petitions seeking the nullification of Proclamation 1959, President Arroyo’s martial law declaration, have been filed before the Supreme Court.

If the government’s plan goes unchallenged, members of the Ampatuan political clan — the prime suspects in the massacre — would be slapped with rebellion, not multiple murder, charges. Under Philippine laws, all crimes in pursuit of rebellion, including murder and multiple murder, are subsumed in the main rebellion case. Rebellion is a bailable offence whose offenders may obtain pardon or clemency from the President.