MANILA (Mindanao Examiner / Apr. 8, 2014) – The Aquino government has vowed to solve the killing of a female journalist who was attacked inside her home by three gunmen.
“We extend our condolences to the family of the late Rubylita Garcia and we promise that we will pursue this heinous death,” Presidential Spokesman Edwin Lacierda said.
Garcia was shot several times in her house in Cavite’s Bacoor City on April 6.
Citing police information, Lacierda said investigators have already produced a sketch of the gunmen based on the account of a lone witness.
Police said one man was arrested in connection to the killing, but Garcia’s son said he was not the attacker, raising suspicion that authorities were trying to present a fall guy to say that the case has been quickly solved.
The 52-year old Garcia was a correspondent for the daily tabloid Remate and a member of the National Press Club. Garcia was able to tell her son who the probable suspects in the attack before she died in the hospital and among them was a local police officer whom she had an altercation. The officer was relieved from his post to allay fears of a whitewash in the ongoing investigation.
Police said Garcia’s attackers did not hide their identities when they barged into the victim’s home at past 10 a.m. on Sunday.
Garcia was the publisher of the Pilipino Times and also president of a newly formed group of journalists in the Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Rizal and Quezon called the Confederation of Active Media Practitioners Organization.
Lacierda said police are also looking into the alleged involvement of politicians and policemen in the murder. Garcia is the 20th journalist killed under Aquino’s watch.
Various local and foreign media organizations have condemned the murder of Garcia. Among them were the Alab ng Mamamahayag, the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines and the National Press Club, the Mindanao Independent Journalists Alliance, Inc. and the Davao del Norte Press and Radio-TV Club.
Reporters Without Borders also condemned the execution-style killing of Garcia.
“We offer our sincere condolences to Rubylita Garcia’s family and we urge the police to identify those responsible for her murder so that they can be brought to trial,” said Benjamin Ismaïl, the head of the Reporters Without Borders Asia-Pacific desk, in a statement sent to the regional newspaper Mindanao Examiner.
“The authorities must urgently adopt concrete measures to immediately end impunity for this kind of violence or else they will have to shoulder much of the blame for the next attacks on journalist. Each murder of a journalist becomes the government’s responsibility because of its failure to react,” he said.
The Philippines is ranked 149th out of 180 countries in the 2014 Reporters Without Borders press freedom index, nine places lower than in 2013.The Philippines is one of the world’s deadliest countries for the media. (Mindanao Examiner)
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