CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY—Talk about impunity.
One of the suspects in the failed assassination of a broadcaster here returned to where the victim worked apparently in a bid to finish the hit job.
Celso Maldecir, manager of a station of the radio network Bombo Radyo here, said the suspect went to the station on Saturday asking for the whereabouts of James Michael Licuanan, the broadcaster who was shot Nov. 24 and brought to a hospital for bullet wounds.
The guard on duty, according to Maldecir, recognized the suspect as one of two men who had waited for Licuanan in the station, tailed him and shot him as the broadcaster went home near the Cogon Public Market.
Station employees alerted police about the suspect’s arrival last Saturday but the still unidentified man was gone by the time policemen came, said Maldecir.
Michael Bustamante, Licuanan’s colleague at Bombo Radyo, said the boldness displayed by the suspect was a cause for concern. “Imagine they still have the balls to show up here?” said Bustamante.
JB Deveza, of the Mindanao Media Safety Office of the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines, said the incident should not be taken lightly.
Santiago Goking, head of the Cagayan de Oro Press Club (COPC), said it only confirmed fears that Licuanan and other journalists were not safe.
Goking said COPC does not only want police to protect Licuanan but to “solve this crime.” The suspect’s boldness, he said, “is a big slap to the police.”
Last week, journalists slammed the city police’s alleged lack of interest on the Licuanan case.
They also asked police to solve another assassination attempt on a radio worker, dzCC anchorman Nilo Labares, in 2009. Bobby Lagsa, Inquirer Mindanao