CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY (Mindanao Examiner / June 13, 2014) – Police arrested Friday a man accused as behind the killing of a Filipino radio broadcaster Joas Dignos in the southern Philippines.
Police said Dionisio Daulong was arrested in the house of his partner in the village of Paitan in Bukidnon’s Quezon town. Daulong, a member of a notorious criminal gang, is being accused in the murder of the broadcaster in November 29 last year.
A village official was also arrested for allegedly protecting Daulong, a known killer-for-hire, who is also being linked to several more murders and frustrated murders and robberies in the province.
Dignos, a commentator at dxGT Radyo Abante in Maramag town, was shot and killed by two motorcycle gunmen in front of the CAP Building along Sayre Highway in Valencia City in Bukidnon province.
Just recently, another radio broadcaster Nilo Baculo, 67, was shot dead by an unidentified gunman near his home in Calapan City in Oriental Mindoro province, about 140 km southwest of Manila.
The murder of Baculo, who previously sought court protection following a death threat, remains unresolved and so were hundreds of other journalists murdered across the country the past decades.
Baculo in 2008 asked a court for protection after learning of a plot to kill him from the hired gun contracted to carry out the hit, but it was turned down for a reason that the broadcaster failed to substantiate his request.
Following the court’s denial to protect him, Baculo said: “Our justice system is rotten. You have to die first before you can prove that a threat does exist.”
Baculo, who hosted a news talk and public service program “Isumbong Mo kay Ka Nilo” over radio station dwIM in Calapan City, was the 165th journalist murdered in the Philippines – the 33rd under the watch of President Benigno Aquino, and the fourth this year. (J. Magtanggol)
20