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ZAMBOANGA CITY: Malacañang has ordered investigation of the murder
of Ferdie Lintuan, a Davao City-based radio broadcaster shot dead in
a daring broad daylight attack in the southern Philippine port city
of Davao on Monday.
Police said Lintuan, a commentator of radio dxGO,
was with two other media men in his car when ambushed and killed by
still unidentified men just outside the radio station where he was
working. He was instantly killed in the attack that occurred around
10 a.m.
Malacañang has directed the Philippine National
Police (PNP) and the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) to
conduct the probe of the killing of a Davao City broadcaster on
Monday.
In a text message, Jesus Dureza, presidential
adviser on the peace process, said the government will not allow
perpetrators of the killing go unpunished, appealing to the members
of Davao media organizations to help the victim’s family.
“We condemn the murder of Davao radioman
Ferdie Lintuan who was shot in his car as he stopped at the
junction. He came from [his] radio program at station dxGO. Two
media companions Lucio Ceniza and Edgar Banzon were not hurt,”
Dureza said in his message.
“We are asking the police and the NBI to
investigate this. The government will not allow this criminal act to
go unpunished. We are coordinating with Davao media groups in
providing assistance to the grieving family. Lintuan, a widower, is
taking care of four school-aged children.”
“We still don’t know the motive [behind] the
killing,” policeman Anthony Suniel told The Manila Times by phone
from Davao City. “There is an investigation going on.”
Lintuan’s killing was condemned by the
National Press Club and the Alyansa ng Filipinong Mamamahayag.
No other details of the Lintuan killing were
made available by the police, but extrajudicial killings are rampant
in Davao, where several journalists also had been murdered in the
past. Among them were Ed Palomares, Cezar Magalang, Narciso Balani
and Rogie Zagado in 1987 and Juan Pala Jr. in 2003.
The Press Club noted that Lintuan’s
cold-bloodied death came on the heels of the ambushes in Davao on
two more hard-hitting radio commentators, Armando “Rachman” Pace
and Jun Pala.
Recently, three journalists—broadcaster
Alexander Adonis and newspapermen Roger Flaviano and Tony
Figueroa—in Davao were convicted of libel for working true to the
definition of press freedom.
In addition, media men working in Davao
complained of numerous death threats faced by some of them.
Last week, freelance journalist Romelito Oval
Jr., was also killed and his body buried in a shallow grave on a
remote village in Butuan City, Agusan del Sur province, also in the
southern Mindanao region.
To date, more than 900 persons have been killed
and hundreds missing since President Gloria Arroyo took office in
2001, according to the United Methodist News Service. Among the
victims are dozens of lawyers, judges and church leaders.
In October, a Filipino broadcaster, Jose Pantoja,
was shot and seriously wounded in front of the Mindanao State
University in Iligan City, Lanao del Sur province. The attacker fled
after the shooting.
In August, unidentified gunman also shot and
wounded another broadcaster, Manuel Kong, of the radio station dxSN,
in Surigao City, Surigao del Sur province.
Five journalists have been killed and two others
wounded in separate attacks in the Philippines since early this
year, according to the nongovernment National Union of Journalists
of the Philippines (NUJP), an affiliate of the International
Federation of Journalists (IFJ).
Last week, the Federation hailed the arrests of
two suspects in the 2001 murder of Rolando Ureta, a radio journalist
in Aklan province.
It said the arrests of Jessie Ticar and Amador
Raz “underline why it is so important that police continue to
investigate crimes against journalists in order to ensure that
attackers are brought to justice and no longer pose a threat to the
media and to all of society.”
The Federation represents more than 600,000
journalists in 120 countries.
“The IFJ joins the NUJP in welcoming the
arrests and moves by the police and the courts to pursue cases of
felony against journalists. The action should send a message that
perpetrators of crimes against journalists will indeed be punished
in accordance with the law,” said the Federation in a statement
released through National Union of Journalists in the Philippines.
Ticar surrendered to the police on December 18,
announcing his surrender on air while being interviewed over radio
station dyKR in Aklan’s provincial capital Kalibo, the same
station were Ureta worked as program director and anchorman before
he was gunned down on January 3, 2001.
Raz was nabbed on November 26 in Numancia town
on the strength of a warrant issued on November 21 by Judge Marietta
Homena-Valencia, presiding judge of Branch 1 of the Kalibo Regional
Trial Court.
The lone witness, Gerson Sonio, has tagged Ticar
and Raz as the ones who shot Ureta dead along the national highway
in Barangay Bagtu, Lezo town, about seven kilometers west of Kalibo.
The suspects have repeatedly denied involvement
in the killing and questioned the credibility of Sonio.
Ureta had hosted the nightly program Agong
Nightwatch and was investigating the proliferation of illegal
gambling and illegal drugs in the province when he was killed.
While it welcomed the recent arrests, the
International Federation of Journalists said Philippine authorities
should exert more effort to solve the murders of other journalists
in the country.
It cited a 2007 report of the Federation and
Union “Confronting the Perils of Journalism in the Philippines”
that recorded 90 cases of murder of journalists or media workers in
the Philippines over 20 years.
Of the cases, the report said, only three
perpetrators have been convicted and only eight cases remain active.
“The performance of the Philippines police,
courts and judicial system must dramatically improve if
fear-mongering and violence against journalists are to subside,”
said the Federation’s Asia Pacific director, Jacqueline Park.
The Philippines is branded, after Iraq, as one
of the most dangerous work places for journalists because of its
history of unresolved killings of journalists.
Dozens of journalists have been killed in recent
years, and most cases remain unresolved.
-- Al Jacinto, Angelo A. Samonte and William B. Depasupil
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