Former broadcaster shot dead in Camarines Sur

MANILA, Philippines – A former broadcaster was shot dead while on his way home in Magarao, Camarines Sur Friday evening, police said.

Ronaldo Julian was cruising Barangay San Isidro on board a motorcycle when two assailants fired at him at around 11 p.m., hitting him in different parts of his body, said Magarao police chief Vic Azuela.

Julian, in his early 50s, was rushed to the Mother Seton Hospital some five kilometers from Magarao town, but died on arrival at the hospital.

Azuela said the victim succumbed to loss of blood after sustaining six gunshot wounds.

Reports said Julian worked as a broadcaster at the Filipinas Broadcasting Network (dzGE) and dzLB in Naga sometime in 1994. He became an executive assistant at the municipal government of Magarao when his brother Nelson won the mayorship in 2004.

He was also the station manager of dzRC in Legazpi City in the 1990s.

Reports said the killing of the broadcaster was politically motivated even as police were still identifying his assailants.

The killing of Julian brings to five the number of broadcasters slain in Bicol. The others were Ruel Endrinal of dwRl, Jun Villanueva of dzGB, Dyunyor Joe of dzRC, and one broadcaster from Masbate.

In Koronadal, capital city of South Cotabato, Gloria Cuesta, wife of slain broadcaster Dennis Cuesta, thanked officials of the National Press Club after she received P20,000 in financial assistance.

Benny Antiporda, NPC president, and Jerry Yap, NPC director and chairman of the Alyansa ng Filipinong Mamamahayag (AFIMA), gave the cash assistance to Mrs. Cuesta.

The assistance was personally turned over by John Paul Jubelag, an NPC and AFIMA coordinator for the group’s affair in Central Mindanao on Thursday evening at Cuesta’s residence in Digos City.

Jubelag, president of the Publishers Association of General Santos, South Cotabato and Sarangani (PAGES) and one of the provincial correspondents of The STAR in Central Mindanao, also relayed Antiporda and Yap’s condolences to Cuesta’s wife and children.

Cuesta, an anchorman of the Radio Mindanao Network (RMN), was shot by two motorcycle-riding men while walking toward a shopping mall in nearby General Santos City last Aug. 4.

He sustained multiple gunshot wounds in the head and back and died after five days in the intensive care unit of a private hospital in the city.

The suspects, believed to be members of a gun-for-hire syndicate operating in South Cotabato, Sultan Kudarat, Sarangani and General Santos City (Socsksargen) area, remain at large.

Jubelag said the NPC and AFIMA are now taking steps to contact international and national media groups that could possibly give scholarships to Cuesta’s six children.

Cuesta was buried yesterday in Digos City.

Last Thursday, the Sangguniang Panglungsod of General Santos City unanimously approved a resolution condemning the shooting of Cuesta and urging police to step up efforts to identify and arrest the perpetrators.

The resolution was presented to the council by City Councilor Vicente Dante, former manager and hard-hitting commentator of Bombo Radyo General Santos. – With Ramil Bajo