A COLUMNIST and publisher of a two-week-old community newspaper in Catanduanes was shot dead Tuesday, making him the first journalist killed under the Duterte administration.
Larry Que, who ran as mayor of Virac town and was publisher of Catanduanes News Now, was shot in the head by a gunman wearing a bonnet and raincoat who then fled on a motorcycle driven by an accomplice.
Que’s murder came after he wrote a column criticizing local officials following the recent discovery of a shabu laboratory in the province.
His murder came after he criticized what he called local officials’ alleged negligence, which allowed the setting up on the island-province of a recently raided shabu laboratory that authorities claimed was the “biggest” so far discovered in the country.
Broadcaster Jinky Tabor, who acted as a witness to the raid on the laboratory, has also received threats, local journalists said Tuesday.
He also wrote it was likely the Chinese nationals who set up the laboratory had help from Chinese residents of the island province.
In a statement, the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines condemned Que’s murder, and challenged authorities, particularly the Presidential Task Force on Violations of the Right to Life, Liberty and Security of the Members of the Media, to immediately solve his killing.
“These have created a climate of fear within the local media community. It should be stressed that the murder of Que is not the first assault on journalists under the current administration,” Dabet Panelo, NUJP secretary general, said in a statement.
“Thus far, we have to hear back from authorities despite the creation of task forces to investigate these thankfully botched assassination attempts.”
Panelo reminded authorities that on the day of Duterte’s inauguration, motorcycle-riding gunmen shot and wounded Saturnino Estanio of Radio Mindanao Network’s dxRS in Surigao City and his 12-year-old son. A bystander was also injured in the incident.
Just last month, Pangasinan journalist Virgilio Maganes survived an attempt on his life by gunmen who apparently tried to disguise the hit as drug-related. They left behind a cardboard placard that said: “Wag nyo akung tularan drug posher ako (sic).”
The group scored the Duterte administration and its loyal supporters for “heaping insults, curses and even threats” towards the members of the press.
“It has not helped that Duterte, who has shown a total aversion to criticism, and some of his officials have time and again been openly hostile towards journalists and the media as a whole, with his loyal supporters taking the cue and heaping insults, curses and even threats through social media on several of our colleagues.”
“Nor has it helped that an army of trolls and social media operators are waging a campaign of lies through fake news sites that they tout as their ‘people’s alternative’ to ‘biased’ media or that Duterte’s spokesmen are forever having to explain his statements and blaming media for failing to see beyond what they insist is ‘hyperbole’ or, alternately, to apply ‘creative imagination.’”
The group said the government to stop blaming media for their mishaps, when the press is faithful in reporting the news.
“We call on this administration to walk the talk and prove its professed respect for press freedom, not only by quickly solving these brazen assaults on press freedom but, just as importantly, by ending its penchant of falsely blaming media for deliberately misinterpreting its often inconsistent and incoherent messages and instead working on making its communications crystal-clear,” the group said.