If one could order a crime as one does a dinner, what would you choose? . . . Let’s review the menu. Robbery? Forgery? No, I think not. Rather too vegetarian. It must be murder—red-blooded murder—with trimmings, of course.
— English author Agatha Christie, The A.B.C. Murder
MAYPAJO, Caloocan City — I count myself lucky as I have survived three attempts on my life—once in 1997 in Bulacan when I was with then Doña Remedios Trinidad mayor Norma Rampas, secondly in Santa Cruz, Manila I’m with my photographer Romel Saniel and finally in Pasay City while celebrating the birthday of a colleague in a well-known nightspot at the corner of Antipolo Street and Roxas Boulevard.
My friends and coworkers at People’s Journal Tonight, among them my mentor and hard-hitting columnist, Danny Hernandez of the Sunday Punch, and editor Berteni ‘Toto’ Causing, used to joke after the third attempt that I still had six lives (if I were a cat). Ironically, weeks after that last ambush, ‘Boss’ Danny was himself killed, allegedly in a robbery executed by the notorious ‘ipit’ gang.
The foregoing flooded my memories as I read an article about journalists being killed like chickens here in the Philippines. Since 1986, a total of 147 journalists, including 89 radio journalists, had been murdered, according to the Paris-based global watchdog’ Reporters sans frontières’ (RSF), or Reporters Without Borders (RWB).
The latest victim is radio journalist Erwin Labitad Segovia, 63, popularly known as ‘BiyPana’, who was gunned down two days ago, on July 21, and the police in southern Philippines have already launched a search to nab the unknown attackers. The timeline for the arrest is also unknown — I’m sure it’s not so easy to catch unknown suspects.
Segovia was attacked and killed at Bislig City, Surigao del Sur province in Mindanao Island, a Muslim-majority region infamous for insurgency and terrorism for decades.
This is the second killing of a journalist in less than a month. Former radio broadcaster and transgender rights campaigner, Ali Macalintal, was gunned down as well, again by unknown attackers in General Santos City, also in Mindanao, last June 23.
Segovia hosted a popular radio program, “Diritsahan!” (Direct), on Radio WOW FM, covering topics such as local governance, community issues, and socio-political matters. He was on his way home when two motorcycle-riding attackers followed and shot him at close range.
The Presidential Task Force on Media Security (PTFoMS), the State-run watchdog formed during the presidency of Davao strongman Rodrigo ‘Rody’ Duterte and now headed by veteran media man Jose ‘Joe’ Torres, said in a statement that it is joining with Philippine National Police Media Vanguards and the Media-Citizen Council to investigate Segovia’s assassination.
Torres immediately stated that “the safety of journalists remains a priority for the government and justice for victims of media-related violence continues to be a national concern.”
“National concern, my boot—We’re sure no one’s going to pay for the crime!” one of my radical media colleagues reacted.
And former Cantilan, Surigao del Sur mayor Carla Lopez Pichay also reacted to Segovia’s murder, declaring one million pesos (US$17,500) as bounty for information on the attackers responsible for the brutal killing. Segovia reportedly worked for Pichay during her bid for the congressional seat of Surigao del Sur in the midterm election on May 12.
RWB ranks the Philippines as among the most dangerous countries for journalists in the world and in its February report, it stated that “violence and intimidation are daily realities for radio journalists in the Philippines, who must constantly check if they are safe—even in their recording studios.”
The New York City-based Committee to Protect Journalists ranked the Philippines ninth in its 2024 Global Impunity Index, which tracks countries where journalist murders remain unsolved—and they truly remain ‘unsolved’.
That is the sad reality.
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