Manila: Media associations Wednesday called on President Beningo Aquino to solve the killings and harassment of journalists after a radio journalist survived an assassination attempt in northern Luzon’s Pangasinan province.
President Aquino “should take drastic measures to address the country’s horrendous record of journalist assassinations before more journalists are killed. How many more journalists have to lose their lives for the government and law enforcement agencies to act?” Jane Worthington, director of Asia Pacific region’s International Federation of Journalists, said in a statement.
Orlando Navarro, 54, is recovering at the intensive care of the Pangasinan Medical Centre where he was brought after an unidentified suspect shot him as soon as he alighted from a motorbike in front of his house in Pantal Village, Dagupan, before midnight of Tuesday.
“His recent exposes on illegal drugs in Pantal Village may have spurred attempts to silence him,” said the National Union of Journalists Philippines (NUJP).
The acting station manager of dwIZ FM News in Dagupan is also known as a hard-hitting commentator.
“The police should arrest the killer and bring the mastermind to the bar of justice,” said Pangasinan governor Amado Espino Jr.
“The near slay of Navarro is a dastardly act that should be denounced in the strongest terms by a civilised society,” Espino added.
In response, police said that three suspected gunmen hired to kill Navarro were called for questioning.
It was the fifth attack on journalists this year.
Broadcaster Richard Nidjad was shot dead near his home in Bongao, Tawi-Tawi, in southern Philippines last May.
Nilo Baculo Sr., was initially given police protection after he complained of a plot to kill him last May. When the protection was withdrawn, he was killed in Calapan, Oriental Mindoro, southern Luzon on June.
Rubylita Garcia, reporter of Manila’s Remate, a print tabloid, and a broadcaster in southern suburban Cavite, was shot in front of her grandchild outside of her house in Talaba Village last April. She died while undergoing treatment for five gunshot wounds.
Radamalyn Cardoza, broadcaster of Bambi FM, survived an assassination attack in a restaurant in San Jose, Occidental Mindoro, in southern Luzon last March.
A total of 295 media killings were documented since a the ouster of former President Ferdinand Marcos by a people-backed military mutiny in 1986 up to 2013, the first three years of Aquino, according to the Philippine Centre for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ).
About 172 cases were recorded from 1986 to 2010, and 23 others, including 16 broadcasters and seven print journalists, from 2010 to 2013, during Aquino’s first three years, PCIJ said, adding that validation was done with various media groups.
