Bukidnon radioman shot

A Bukidnon radio commentator, who may have earned the ire of drug gangs for leading an anti-drug campaign on air, was shot and wounded yesterday, becoming the latest victim in a string of violence against journalists in the country.

Edward Balida, a commentator of Radio Mindanao Network’s local affiliate in Valencia, Bukidnon, was walking to work when a man shot him, hitting him in the hand, said Angelito Paraguya, RMN station manager in nearby Malaybalay town.

He quoted Balida as saying that the unidentified assailant had been following him. Balida was hit in the left hand and his forefinger had to be amputated, Paraguya said.

"Edward is an anti-drug campaigner; he has been helping the government in its anti-drug drive," Paraguya said, adding that Balida’s exposés may have angered drug syndicates.

Police launched an investigation, but said they have no suspects yet.

The shooting follows the killing of four journalists within a span of two weeks. But authorities say two of the cases — which are still under investigation — do not appear to be work-related.

At least 47 journalists have been killed in work-related incidents since democracy was restored in the Philippines in 1986, including four so far this year, according to the media watchdog Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility.

Its list does not include the cases of Jun Abayon, a reporter of radio station dxBB in General Santos City who was shot dead by a bodyguard of world boxing champion Manny Pacquiao last week, and Fernando Consignado, a volunteer reporter in Laguna of Church-run Radio Veritas who was found dead with a gunshot wound in his head last Thursday.

Police in Nagcarlan, Laguna where Consignado resided, said he had received threats from his own relatives over a land dispute.

Paraguya said he himself has received several death threats from police officials and communist rebels, apparently because of his stinging commentaries.

He said he now carries a caliber .45 pistol and has two bodyguards.

"We are alarmed by these incidents and are doing all we can to bring justice to your colleagues," Philippine National Police chief Director General Hermogenes Ebdane Jr. told reporters.

Ebdane has created a task force and ordered a stepped-up investigation into the killings of journalists. — Rene Alviar