MANILA (Mindanao Examiner / June 5, 2013) – A suspected hired killer fatally shot a radio correspondent in an attack in Masbate province in the Bicol region, the media watchdog National Union of Journalist of the Philippines reported.
It said Miguelito “Mike” Rueras, who was working for dyDD El Nuevo Bantay Radyo, was tending his small convenience store when a lone gunman shot him several times in the chest on June 1. He was instantly killed and became the 3rd journalist murdered in Masbate since 2003.
NUJP, quoting a police report, said the assailant fled on a black motorcycle toward neighboring nearby village.
No individual or group claimed responsibility for the killing. The motive of the attack is still unknown, but during the May 2013 elections, Rueras reportedly stopped reporting to dyDD and had worked for the campaign of re-elected Masbate Gov. Rizalina Lanete.
It was unknown whether the killing was connected politics or to Rueras’ job as a radio reporter.
The NUJP condemned the killing and expressed fears that “the murder of Rueras might find its place in the archived cases handled by the police authorities.”
Two Masbate journalists – Nelson Nadura was murdered on December 2, 2003 and Antonio Castillo who was also killed on June 12, 2009.
NUJP said the cases “remain unsolved as of this day and the killers are still scot free.”
“We…strongly urge the Philippine National Police to bring justice to the families of our slain colleagues by sending the perpetrator and others involved to jail and suffer the punitive consequence of the crime committed,” NUJP Masbate said.
In April this year, a radio announcer,Mario Vendiola Baylosis, 33, was also shot dead by two motorcycle gunmen in a daring broad daylight attack in the town of Kabasalan in the southern province of Zamboanga Sibugay.
Baylosis worked for Radio Natin in Kabasalan town. The assailants escaped on a motorcycle after the noontime attack 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.
No individual has claimed responsibility for the attack and police could not say whether the killing of Baylosis was connected to his job.
Just recently, the house of a radio broadcaster, Rodolfo Tanquis, 50, of radio station dxFL, was strafed by an unidentified gunman in Dipolog City in Zamboanga del Norte, also in southern Philippines.
Prior to the shooting, the radio station was also strafed and damaged its facade and the announcer’s booth. Tanquis was previously arrested by policemen for his alleged libelous commentaries about them.
The motive of the attack is still unknown and police would not say if the shootings had anything to do with the operation of the radio station or its announcers.
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.(Mindanao Examiner)
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