Abducted broadcaster may still be alive, police say

BALER, Aurora – A radio anchorman, who was abducted by unidentified men here last week, may still be alive and may have gone into hiding, police said yesterday.

Chief Superintendent Alejandro Lapinid, Central Luzon police director, said in an interview on radio station dzRH that there is a strong possibility that Joey Estriber is still alive.

He said the PNP is investigating the text messages which Estriber had supposedly sent to his colleagues.

Estriber, 37, anchorman of the Pag-usapan Natin program on dzJO, was snatched at about 6:20 p.m. of March 3 near an Internet café on Burgos street in this capital town.

He resisted while he was being dragged to a maroon van with heavily tinted windows and no license plate.

In a fact sheet, Estriber’s colleagues in the Multi-sectoral Action Group (MSAG) implicated Army Col. Joselito Kakilala, commanding officer of the Army’s 48th Infantry Battalion based in Barangay Wenceslao, Ma. Aurora town, in Estriber’s abduction.

Kakilala and his immediate superior, Maj. Gen. Jovito Palparan, commanding general of the Army’s 7th Infantry Division, welcomed any investigation into the incident.

The MSAG is a coalition of various non-government and people’s organizations and Church and civic groups in the province.

According to reports, Estriber’s group has been making some enemies.

Last December, the building of the MSAG’s Bataris Formation Center in Barangay Buhangin here was burned down and two of its staffers were almost abducted.

Last month, the military said members of NGOs like Bataris were in its "order of battle."

In a recent forum where Estriber spoke, four soldiers reportedly tried to force their way in.

Probers still have no solid clues on the abduction.