PAGADIAN CITY (Mindanao Examiner / Apr. 22, 2013) – A radio announcer was shot dead by two motorcycle gunmen in a daring broad daylight attack on Monday in the town of Kabasalan in the southern Filipino province of Zamboanga Sibugay, police said.
It said the attackers killed Mario Vendiola Baylosis, 33, who worked at the Radio Natin in Kabasalan town. “The victim suffered three gunshot wounds in the chest. He was rushed to hospital but died along the way,” said Insp. Ariel Huesca, a regional police spokesman.
He said the assailants escaped on a motorcycle after the shooting, which occurred before noontime in front of a gasoline station in downtown Kabasalan.
Baylosis just came from work and on his way home on a motorcycle when he was shot several times by the gunmen who tailed him. The assailants fled toward nearby town of Ipil after the shooting, according to Huesca.
“There is an investigation going on to determine the motive of the killing and who was behind it,” he said.
No individual has claimed responsibility for the attack and police could not say whether the killing of Baylosis was connected to his job.
In 2009, dozens of journalists who were covering a political convoy had been seized and brutally killed by some 200 gunmen who were followers of a rival clan in Maguindanao province.
Attacks on journalists in the Philippines are not uncommon and the country remains one of the world’s most dangerous for media workers. (Ely D. Umaboc)
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