Radio station manager shot, wounded

DAGUPAN CITY—A radio station manager was shot and wounded by a lone gunman in Barangay (village) Pantal here while he was on his way home early morning on Tuesday, police said.

Orlando “Orly” Navarro, 54, was talking to a tricycle driver around 1 a.m. on Tuesday when he was shot in the back, said  Supt. Christopher Abrahano, city police chief.

He said Navarro, a commentator and station manager of dwIZ News Radio, attended a party in a hotel here and hailed a tricycle around 12:35 a.m. to take him home.

This was the third attack on a media worker in Pangasinan province since 2007 when broadcaster Allan Sison was shot and wounded here. In July last year, Jaime Aquino, a local newspaper publisher, was shot and wounded by a one of three men on a motorcycle in Sta. Barbara town.

Abrahano said Navarro alighted at the corner of a street near his house in Barangay Pantal. When the tricycle left, another tricycle arrived and Navarro engaged the driver in a conversation.

“While we were talking, I heard a gunshot. Then, I felt a thud on my back. I knew I was hit,” Navarro told the Inquirer.

Ride to hospital

Navarro, former president of the Pangasinan Press and Radio Club and host of the news commentary program “Orly sa IZ,” said he immediately asked the tricycle driver to take him to the nearest hospital.

Abrahano said investigators had yet to establish if the attack was work-related or personal.

“Work-related or not, we are determined to get who did this. We now have three persons of interest and we are investigating them,” he said.

He said the shooting could not have been done by professional or hired killers.

“There were no riding tandem and no escape vehicles,” he said. “It’s possible that the gunman was just in the vicinity.”

Navarro, in a radio interview, said the shooting could have been the result of his commentaries against illegal drug pushers and users in the village.

This was the first gun attack on Navarro. In 2003, a politician had threatened to kill him while they were in a gathering. In 2010, a libel case was filed against him.

Treacherous

The National Union of Journalists of the Philippines’ (NUJP) Pangasinan chapter, in a statement, called on authorities to “ensure the safety of media practitioners who are only doing their job of exposing the threats and dangers to society.”

Jay Mendoza, president of the local chapter of Kapisanan ng mga Brodkaster ng Pilipinas (KBP), condemned the “treacherous and barbaric” shooting of Navarro.

“We call on our lawmen and responsible agencies to get to the bottom of the incident and bring to justice the perpetrators of this senseless crime, which is a clear assault on press freedom and the local broadcast profession,” Mendoza said in a text message.

Gov. Amado Espino Jr. also denounced Navarro’s shooting.

“I appeal to the police to get to the bottom of this crime and get the culprit and mastermind to the bar of justice,” Espino said in a statement. Reports from Gabriel Cardinoza and Yolanda Sotelo, Inquirer Northern Luzon