Slain Bombo Radyo driver also fed news reports to network
A driver of a radio station, who sometimes aired situation reports, was gunned down at dawn yesterday by four unidentified men riding on motorcycles in Koronadal City in South Cotabato.
Rommel “Jojo” Palma, 31, a driver of Bombo Radyo for the past five years, was attacked while waiting for another reporter, Rey Legario, inside an Isuzu DMAX pickup truck outside the South Cotabato Provincial Hospital at 5 a.m.
Palma died from four bullet wounds, police said. He occasionally fed “general situation” reports for the radio station, according to a colleague, Dods Arcenas.
Waiting for reporter
Arcenas said Palma sat at the driver’s seat when he was shot while Legario was inside the hospital to gather news. “We have no idea yet whether the motive behind the attack was personal or work-related,” Arcenas said.
Police investigators were considering business rivalry as a motive.
Based on records of the city police, Palma reported on April 22 that he was being harassed by two persons whom he had a misunderstanding over his quarrying business. The two had been trailing him in several instances on board a motorcycle without a plate number, he said.
On April 28, Palma said he noticed a motorcycle parked outside the Bombo Radyo news center.
The National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP) condemned the killing and challenged law enforcement agencies to do everything to identify and arrest the killers.
Call for justice
“Regardless of whether the motive is work-related or personal, we are calling on our law enforcement agencies to do their best to identify and arrest the suspects the soonest time possible,” Nestor Burgos Jr., NUJP chair, said in a phone interview.
The NUJP reported that 150 media workers have been murdered since 1986. On the other hand, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) 2012 Impunity Index puts the Philippines in third place after Somalia and Iraq among the countries “where journalists are slain and killers go free.”
A few hours after yesterday’s killing, police invited two persons for questioning. Arcenas said the police had in custody a witness who claimed he saw the gunmen.
Insp. Rey Igos, intelligence chief of the city police, refused to give details of the case, saying it might jeopardize follow-up operations.
2nd fatality in region
Palma is the second media worker murdered in Central Mindanao this year. The first, Christopher Guarin, publisher and editor of Tatak tabloid, was chased by motorcycle-riding men on his way home on January 5 and was shot in front of his wife and daughter. With reports from Edwin O. Fernandez and Jeoffrey Maitem, Inquirer Mindanao
