COTABATO CITY, Philippines — Members of the local media are urging the military to closely secure places that colleagues from other areas will be visiting during the second commemoration of the infamous Maguindanao Massacre on November 23.

Bureau of Public Information of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BPI-ARMM) Director Ali G. Macabalang said security issues should take preference in the coverage of the event, which is expected to draw dozens of visiting journalists alongside local and international human rights observers.

He said several members of the national and international media have contacted him for working collaboration, including concerns on security preparation with local authorities.

As this developed, Macabalang wrote a letter to Colonel Mayoralgo dela Cruz, head of the 1st Mechanized Brigade in Shariff Aguak, Maguindanao, requesting security measures for media members or groups who “might want to come for coverage…secured by local authorities, including your unit.”

“In preparation for a huge convergent coverage of the second Anniversary of the Maguindanao Massacre, several friends from the media have contacted me for coordination in my capacity both as a journalist colleague and as head of the BPI-ARMM,” said Macabalang, a veteran journalist also writing for the Manila Bulletin.

He said the local media would want to make it “on record” that they have asked for security assistance to local authorities, including the military, to avoid a repeat of the gruesome killings of 33 journalists and 24 other civilians.

He said some reporters have also indicated plan to cover an electoral recall proceeding in five villages of Rajah Buayan, Maguindanao, involving a member of the Ampatuan clan, the family which had prominently figured in an ongoing multiple murder trial in connection with the infamous Maguindanao Massacre.

“As a prelude to the event, visiting journalists may also want to cover an electoral recall proceeding in five villages in Rajah Buayan, Maguindanao, from November 11 to 16, 2011. Similarly, we fully expect much of your cooperation and support to be closely visible, able in securing those places for safer media coverage during the five-day event,” he said.

Macabalang said an enhanced collaboration would also ensure that an unfortunate incident like the attack on media convoy by armed militia and policemen two years ago would be avoided.

He said it was unfortunate that the late Manila Bulletin reporter Alejandro “Bong” Reblando had to make the security coordination in the last minute and only through cellular phone calls to a ranking Army division officer, who purportedly assured him and the victims in the last hour of their lives that “there is no threat on the ground.”

“For the record, interested local, national and international media groups have the confident presumption that areas which their representative reporters might want to go to for coverage are safely being secured by local authorities, including your unit,” Macabalang also wrote Lt. Col. Marvin Lacodine, commander of the Army’s 45th Infantry Battalion, based in Rajah Buayan, Maguindanao.