At least 24 cases of murders of journalists in the Philippines remain unsolved in the past decade, making the country the deadliest peacetime nation for the press, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said Monday.

CPJ Impunity Campaign Coordinator Elisabeth Witchel said the Philippines ranked sixth in the CPJ's Impunity Index, which assesses the safety and protection of journalists worldwide.

The first five nations on the Index -- Iraq, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sri Lanka and Colombia -- have endured years of armed conflict while the Philippines is considered a peacetime democracy.

Witchel said cases are considered unsolved when no convictions have been obtained.

Impunity Index

The Impunity Index, which was compiled for the second year in a row, calculates the number of unsolved journalist murders as a percentage of a country’s population from the years 1999 through 2008. Only nations with five or more unsolved cases are included in the index, a threshold reached by 14 countries this year.

Shawn Crispin, CPJ Senior Representative for Southeast Asia, said the Index should serve as a wake-up call to the Arroyo government to do more in solving the murders of journalists in the country.

"The Philippines, with its exceptionally high rate of killings of journalists and especially low rate of prosecutions, has long been a poster-child of impunity in the global context. Our research shows that the impunity rate in killed journalists' cases here still hovers above 90 percent, one of the highest in the world," he said.

Crispin said the high rate of unsolved journalists' murders in the Philippines "encouraged repeated and sustained attacks against the press here."

Ineffective courts

He said CPJ research has shown local courts to be ineffective in trying journalist murders since "local judges have been reluctant to proceed with cases involving influential public figures."

He cited the case of murdered Mindanao reporter Marlene Garcia-Esperat whose case has been shuffled to different local courts at the request of prosecutors. "They do it to get protection for witnesses and to get a fair trial," he said.

Crispin said the Philippine National Police's Task Force Usig, which is dedicated to solving journalists' murders, has yet to solve a single case since last year.

"We are putting the Arroyo government on notice that we will continue to condemn her administration's poor record until the situation substantially and genuinely ameliorates," he said.

Witchel urged the Philippine government to "make all the legal resources available to gain convictions" including assigning sufficient prosecutors and investigators to these cases and providing protection to witnesses."

"The causes of impunity are complicated, and we recognize this is a long-term problem, but the fact is, the killings will continue until there is a clear message perpetrators will be punished. We don't expect a country to drop off this list in a year but CPJ hopes that governments will see by this list that they need to find a way to start moving in the right direction," she said.

 "There is only way out of this list and that is to fully solve the cases and gain convictions and prevent more violence," she added.

Philippine National Police (PNP) chief Director General Avelino Razon Jr. earlier denied CPJ's claims that the Philippines is one of 13 countries that are the worst offenders in letting killers of journalists get away with murder.