Plot to kill wife of slain GenSan radioman, others bared

DAVAO CITY—The alleged mastermind of the 2008 murder of journalist Dennis Cuesta in General Santos City is plotting to kill the slain journalist’s wife and two other persons, according to the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP).

NUJP said Al Josol, the manager of Radyo Mo Nationwide’s dxMD station in General Santos, learned about the plot from a trusted aide of Inspector Redempto Acharon, the alleged brains in the Cuesta murder.

NUJP quoted Josol as saying Acharon, who is still at large, had ordered the radio station manager killed. Acharon, NUJP quoted Josol as saying, also ordered the killing of Cuesta’s wife, Gloria, and Badong Ramos, an employee of the Department of Justice (DoJ).

Josol, according to NUJP, got the information from a certain Jade Isa, a trusted aide of Acharon.

Cuesta, a dxMD commentator, was gunned down on Aug. 8, 2008, in General Santos. Witnesses had pointed to Acharon as the brains behind the murder.

Acharon had been charged with the murder and had gone into hiding.

Josol quoted Isa as saying on April 5 that the plot to kill him, Cuesta’s wife and the DoJ employee was hatched in November. Isa and a cousin of Acharon, identified only as Kenneth, were present at the meeting where the plot was hatched.

NUJP said Josol reported the threat to the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group and had requested the Army for bodyguards.

Extrajudicial killings continue under the Aquino administration which had campaigned on a platform of good governance but which has so far failed to put an end to a culture of impunity.—Germelina Lacorte