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By Armand M. Galang Correspondent
and Anthony Vargas, Reporter
SANTA ROSA, Nueva Ecija: A
reporter of the government-owned radio station Radyo ng Bayan was
killed and dumped in the outskirts of Barangay Soledad, Santa Rosa,
by still unidentified suspects.
Supt. Benjamin de la Cruz, town
police chief, said the body of Mark Palacios, 42, a resident of the
northern Nueva Ecija town of Guimba, was recovered about 6 a.m.
Palacios is a member of the Nueva
Ecija Press Club Inc., the umbrella organization of media groups in
the province. He has also been involved in an anticrime group.
Initial investigation disclosed
that Palacios was hit by a hard object in his head, said de la Cruz,
sustaining bruises in different parts of his body.
The body, when found bore a
gunshot wound on the chin, has broken jaws and teeth and bruised in
different parts, said the reports by the provincial police chief,
Senior Supt. Allen Bantolo.
Reports said that before the
discovery of the body, several residents saw an unknown type of
vehicle maneuvering in the area before hastily leaving toward the
direction of Cabanatuan City.
Police theorized that the victim
might have been tortured and killed somewhere else and his body
dumped in the area to mislead investigators, reports said.
Barias said that investigators
have taken the testimonies of residents that saw the vehicle, which
they believed was used in dumping the victim’s body in the area.
“It is too early to make
conclusions at this point in the investigation, neither do we want
to speculate on the possible motive [behind the killing],” Barias
said in a statement.
Crime scene investigators have
noted that when the body was checked, the victim still had a small
amount of cash inside a coin purse but his mobile phone was missing.
The motive for the killing
remains unknown. Palacios was the second journalist murdered this
year.
In December Ponciano Grande was
killed in a supposed robbery and the same month, ABS-CBN
correspondent Butch Gamboa survived an ambush in San Jose City.
Last year 12 media men and women
were murdered in the course of their work, according to the National
Union of Journalists in the Philippines.
Television reports said it was
possible Palacios was targeted because he had criticized corruption
in his province.
The spate of unsolved killings of
journalists has made the country the second most dangerous place for
news professionals after Iraq, press watchdog groups have said.
-- With reports from AFP
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