Only a handful of families control the country's forests, coastal resources, and land. Despite the danger, more than a third of some sixty stories underwritten by the Manila-based Center for Investigative Journalism, which Vitug helped found in 1989, have something to do with the environment. The center, with money from the Asia Foundation and other sources, pays top Philippine journalists, some on leave from newspapers, to do long-term investigative stories, then sells those stories to the quality Manila press. The end of censorship has given reporters like Vitug, who now works as a free-lancer, the chance to write about controversial issues. At the same time, it has exposed them to greater physical danger.
Philippine journalists say that perhaps twice that number have been threatened or attacked.
Recently, those writing about the environment have come under fire. In 1991, three journalists who reported on local officials' involvement in illegal logging and mining were threatened. A fourth, Nesino P. Toling, editor of a crusading little paper in northwestern Mindanao, the Panguil Bay Monitor, was shot and killed while he was typing a story in his two-desk office. Reporters have also been intimidated by threats of libel. But increasingly, journalists say, libel suits are filed by those in power expressly to prevent reporters from pursuing stories that threaten their interests.