2 broadcasters ambushed

A Legazpi City radio announcer was slain and another broadcaster in Davao City was wounded in two ambushes, police said yesterday.

John Villanueva Jr., 53, an announcer with Legazpi City radio station dzGB, was riding a motorcycle on his way home when he was shot dead by unidentified assailants at about 7:50 p.m. Monday in Barangay Tagaytay in Camalig, Albay, police said.

In another incident, Juan "Jun" Porres Pala, an announcer for radio station dxGO in Davao City, had just finished his three-hour program yesterday morning and was riding a taxi with three bodyguards when five men in a black Urvan opened fire on him, wounding him in the buttocks, police said.

Pala, 48, known for his fiery criticism of communist insurgents in the South having founded the anti-communist Alsa Masa movement in the late 1980s, said he and his three bodyguards fired back, wounding one of the attackers.

Lawmen found about 100 empty shells at the ambush scene, near the end of the Airport Road just in the vicinity of Vincent Heights.

He survived an ambush on June 14, 2001 with five bullet wounds, including one in the neck. He now travels with bodyguards.

No motives for the attacks have been established and no one has claimed responsibility, but Pala blamed unnamed government and police officials.

"God must have a purpose for me because I’ve already survived two slay attempts," he said.

The Albay police said two gunmen, one of them wearing a ski mask, shot Villanueva with caliber .45 pistols.

Villanueva had served as Camalig vice mayor for three terms. He ran for mayor in the May 2001 elections but lost.

About 39 journalists have been murdered in the Philippines since democracy was restored here in 1986, making the country one of the most perilous in the world for members of the media, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said earlier this month in its annual report.

No one has been convicted for any of the murders. — Celso Amo, Cet Dematera, Edith Regalado