Radio reporter slain in Dumaguete

BACOLOD CITY, Philippines —  Another radio broadcaster was shot dead on Tuesday night in Dumaguete City, making him the third media practitioner gunned down in Negros Oriental since 2018.

Cornelio Pepino, 48, a reporter-anchorman of radio dyMD Energy FM was shot several times in Barangay Daro and was declared dead on arrival at the Silliman University Medical Center in Dumaguete, Negros Oriental police director Col. Julian Entoma said yesterday.

Entoma said Pepino, also known as Rex Cornelio, was with his wife Colleen on board a motorcycle and were on their way home to Sibulan in the outskirts of the city when two motorcycle-riding suspects approached and shot the victim.

Pepino hosted a commentary radio program “Pukpokin Mo Baby” aired from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. over radio dyMD Energy FM.

Five empty shells of a 9 mm pistol were recovered by the police at the scene.

The Negros Oriental Police Provincial Office has created Task Group Pepino to investigate the killing.

Police records showed that another broadcaster, Edmund Sestoso of dyGB FM, was killed on April 30, 2018, while another radio man Dindo Generoso of dyEM FM was gunned down on Nov. 7, 2019.

Entoma said probers are investigating several angles in the killing of Pepino that include personal grudge and job-related issues.

The investigators are now looking at the possibility that one of the subjects on the victim’s radio commentary may have felt slighted.

However, Entoma added that they are not also discounting the possibility of personal grudge.

Police are also checking Pepino’s cellphone records to track his conversations prior to the murder.

The management of dyMD Energy FM, the Dumaguete Press Club and Negros Oriental First district Rep. Jocelyn Limkaichong condemned the killing of Pepino.

Ely Dejaresco, founding president and chairman emeritus of the Dumaguete Press Club, described the incident as “another dastardly, cowardly and treacherous piece of execution.”

Limkaichong had expressed alarm over the murder of media workers in Negros Oriental.

She said that two days after the commemoration of World Press Freedom Day, “we are faced with the tragedy of the murder of another local media man.”

Brig. Gen. Albert Ignatius Ferro, Central Visayas police director, said Pepino was known as a hard-hitting journalist in Negros Oriental.

“He is critical of some politicians in that province,” Ferro said.

The National Union of Journalists in the Philippines (NUJP) said Pepino is the third broadcaster murdered in Dumaguete since 2018.

If his killing is proven to be work-related, the NUJP said Pepino would the 16th journalist killed under President Duterte’s administration and the 188th slain media worker since democracy was restored in the country after the EDSA People Power revolt in 1986.- Emmanuel Tupas, Iris Hazael Mascardo