The National Union of Journalists in the Philippines (NUJP) on Tuesday urged authorities to solve the killing of Catanduanes News Now publisher Larry Que.
In a statement, NUJP condemned the killing of the publisher and called on the Presidential Task Force on Violations of the Right to Life, Liberty and Security of the Members of the Media to immediately solve Que’s case.
Que was shot in the head on Monday by a motorcycle-riding gunman after the publication of his column criticizing the local government’s alleged failure to detect a shabu laboratory in Catanduanes. He died on Tuesday.
The killing of Que is not the first assault on journalists under the Duterte administration.
On the inauguration day of Duterte, Saturnino “Jan” Estanio of Radio Mindanao Network and his 12-year-old son sustained gunshot wounds in their bodies after they were attacked by motorcycle-riding gunmen outside their home in Surigao.
READ: Radio anchor survives gun attack, son in critical condition in Surigao City
Last month, Virgilio Magnates, a radio commentator in Pangasinan, survived an attack by gunmen who tried to disguise the attack as drug-related. The attackers left behind a cardboard penned with the words “Drug Pusher Huwag Pamarisan (Don’t emulate)” near the scene.
READ: Pangasinan radio commentator pretended he died to dupe attacker
These attacks on media practitioners have created a climate of fear within the local media community.
NUJP said that they have yet to hear from authorities despite the creation of task forces to investigate these assassination attempts.
“It has not helped that Duterte, who has shown a total aversion to criticism, and some of his officials have time and again been openly hostile towards journalists and the media as a whole, with his loyal supporters taking up the cue and heaping insults, curses and even threats through social media on several of our colleagues,” NUJP said.
“Nor has it helped that an army of trolls and social media operators are waging a campaign of lies through fake news sites that they tout as their ‘people’s alternative’ to ‘biased’ media or that Duterte’s spokesmen are forever having to explain his statements and blaming media for failing to see beyond what they insist is ‘hyperbole or to apply creative imagination’,” it added.
NUJP also called on the administration to “walk the talk and prove its professed respect for press freedom” by stopping to falsely blame media for “deliberately misinterpreting its often inconsistent and incoherent messages” and instead deliver crystal clear statements./rga