LUCENA CITY—The widow of a radio broadcaster in Lucena, who was slain 21 years ago, called on all families of victims of recent media killings to continue their quest for justice to end the culture of impunity of violence against newsmen.
“They should not stop in their fight for justice…They should never surrender and go on fighting,” Bonifacia Lingan, 81, widow of murdered Lucena broadcaster Ike Lingan, said.
The couple lived together for 22 years but remained childless.
Bonifacia said she saved every centavo from her meager earnings as laundry woman and as distributor of complimentary copies of a local weekly newspaper just to have money and be able to attend court hearings.
She advised families of victims to bond in their common quest for justice as “there’s strength in unity. But even if alone, they should never give up.”
She urged President Benigno Aquino to help end the spate of media killings in the country. “He can stop the media killings if he really wants to. The shouts of justice from the victim’s families are loud and deafening to ignore.”
Court records showed that on the evening of Feb. 4, 1990, Ike went with another reporter to a local nightclub following reports there were nude dancers there.
When the dancer began gyrating on stage, Ike’s companion took pictures, which angered the club bouncer who shoved the photographer.
Ike and his colleague decided to report the case to police but the club manager and the bouncer followed them and another altercation ensued.
Unfortunately for Ike, the police officer on duty, Felipe Navarro, was related to the club manager.
Instead of hearing Ike’s complaint, the policeman who was drunk, pushed Ike’s companion to the wall and threatened to shoot the photographer.
Ike intervened and introduced himself as a radio reporter but he was instead pistol-whipped by the cop. After more beatings, Ike was rushed to the hospital but was declared dead on arrival.
The policeman was meted 14 years and 8 months in jail but was released several years ago after having served his sentence.
Aside from Ike, two other two local broadcasters—Polly Pobeda and Bert Sison—also fell victims to media killings.
Pobeda, announcer of local radio station dwTI-AM, was on his way to the station when two men on a black motorcycle stopped him and shot him to death in May 2003.
Two years ago, Sison died after he was ambushed by motorcycle-riding assailants while driving his car on his way home to Sariaya town.
Data from the National Union of Journalists in the Philippines (NUJP) showed 145 journalists have been murdered since 1986, five of them under the administration of President Aquino.