Kudarat female columnist shot dead

TACURONG CITY, Sultan Kudarat — A female columnist for a weekly newspaper here became the second journalist murdered in the country this year when she was shot dead in front of her 10-year-old son on Maundy Thursday, police said.

Marlene Garcia Esperat, 45, a hard-hitting columnist of Midland Review, was shot in the head inside her home in Barangay New Isabela here at about 7:15 p.m.

The gunman, reportedly accompanied by a lookout, entered Esperat’s home and greeted her with "Good evening, Ma’am," then shot her with a caliber .45 pistol in front of her son Jam-jam in the sala.

The gunman, said to be brown-complexioned and wearing an orange T-shirt and a baseball cap, casually walked out of the house and boarded a motorcycle, police said.

City police chief Raul Supiter said there were witnesses who saw the gunman’s accomplice, a certain Jake, casing’s Esperat’s home.

"We are still establishing the motive behind the killing but we are not discounting it could have been due to her work," Supiter was quoted as saying by MindaNews. "She had been writing hard-hitting commentaries."

Last Feb. 28, gunmen killed Arnulfo Villanueva, a columnist for the Asian Star Express based in Naic, Cavite. Last year, 13 journalists were murdered across the country.

The Philippines now ranks as the second most dangerous country in the world for journalists, next to Iraq, according to the International Federation of Journalists.

Supiter said Esperat, a former Department of Agriculture employee in Region 12, had been assigned two police escorts but she allowed them to leave on Thursday for their Holy Week break.

Esperat’s husband, George, told a radio station that his wife had "many enemies because of her exposés. I told her earlier to stop but she just shrugged it off saying she was just doing her work."

Alma Vidal, a close friend, said Esperat, popularly known as "Madame Witness," had received several death threats because of her exposés.

Johnny Laguna, publisher of Midland Review, condemned Esperat’s murder, saying, "It’s too bad for the media people here."

Carlos Conde, secretary general of the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines, called on the police to do their best in solving Esperat’s murder.

"More and more of our colleagues are being murdered and it is the responsibility of the police to stop the violence by ensuring that the killers are brought to justice," he said. "This culture of impunity must stop."

The International Press Institute, in its annual report, condemned atmospheres of impunity in countries as diverse as Russia, Haiti, Mexico and the Philippines.

"The apparent inability to successfully investigate murders of journalists and prosecute the killers is an ongoing trend shared by many countries around the world," the report added. — With reports from John Unson, Artemio Dumlao, Cecille Suerte Felipe and AFP