Kudarat publisher shot dead

A publisher of a local newspaper in Sultan Kudarat was shot dead by a lone gunman while having coffee outside his house in Shariff Kabunsuan yesterday morning.

Hernani Pastolero, publisher-editor of the weekly Lighting Courier, was the first journalist to be killed this year after he was shot twice in the head by his assassin, who witnesses said casually walked away from the basketball court in Barangay Bulalo where the victim was taking his coffee.

"The killer must have patterned my father’s routine every morning," Pastolero’s daughter Eva Marie told The STAR, adding "he never mentioned any threat to his life" before the killer felled him with a .45 caliber pistol as two spent shells were recovered from the crime scene.

Witnesses said Pastolero’s killer stands about 5’6" with dark complexion and was clad in denim pants, a dark shirt and wearing a baseball cap.

Police said they were trying to establish a motive, and were investigating whether the killing could be related to Pastolero’s work as editor-in-chief of the Lighting Courier.

Regional police director Chief Superintendent Joel Goltiao said Pastolero, a veteran mediaman of 30 years, did not have known enemies.

Print and broadcast journalists here are themselves puzzled by the possible motive for his murder.

Pastolero only manages his newspaper, but has not been writing stories or columns that could have caught the ire of someone, they said.

The victim is popular in Barangay Bulalo in Shariff Kabunsuan for his active involvement in the peace building activities of the Catholic community in this predominantly Muslim town.

Pastolero was a member of the defunct local monitoring team that supervised the enforcement of the ceasefire between the government and the separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front in the late 1990s.

In 2000, Pastolero’s nephew Joel, now a retired radio reporter, was shot and wounded by a suspected gun-for-hire inside a barangay hall, just a block away from where the older Pastolero was killed. At the time, Joel was working for an outfit of the University of Mindanao Broadcasting Network in Cotabato City.

The National Bureau of Investigation said they would consider Pastolero’s murder a "priority" and vowed to exhaust all efforts to immediately identify his assassin and identify the motive.

Goltiao said Task Force Pastolero was formed to look into the killing.

Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel Jr. condemned the murder, as he assailed the government for failing to address the problem of extrajudicial killings in the country.

In a statement, the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines president Jose Torres Jr. also condemned this "latest atrocity against the Philippine media."

Razon replaced

As extrajudicial killings in the country continued, the government made a surprising move by replacing Deputy Director General Avelino Razon Jr. as head of Task Force Usig.

Razon himself admitted that he left the task force effective yesterday and that he was replaced by Chief Superintendent Geary Barrias, who has been serving as his deputy since the task force was formed in May last year to look into the spate of killings.

"It’s high time that I leave Task Force Usig to be able to concentrate on administrative matters in the Philippine National Police," said Razon, who is the PNP’s deputy chief for administration, considered the No. 2 man in the police organization.

Interior Secretary Ronaldo Puno clarified that Razon was not relieved, but would assume as "supervisor" of the task force.

Puno said the move was part of efforts to streamline the PNP’s operations by appointing action or "point persons" to various task forces in the police force. - John Unson, Evelyn Macairan, Cecille Suerte Felipe, Aurea Calica, AP, AFP