MANILA (UCAN): Benjie Abdul Caballero, station manager of Radyo ni Juan in Tacurong, a Mindanao, the Philippines A was shot and critically wounded by gunmen on October 30, the same day the country was named for having one of the “worst records for justice” when it comes to the murder of journalists.
Initial police reports said Caballero was shot in broad daylight when two men on a motorcycle approached him and shot him in the chest.
Government officials called the shooting a “cowardly attempt” on the life of Caballero, who is known to have criticised several local politicians in his radio programs.
Joel Sy Egco, executive director of the Presidential Task Force on Media Security, said the victim was a “personal friend who has no known enemies.” However, he said Caballero had been “very critical” of a powerful political clan in Maguindanao province.
Task Force sources also claimed that Caballero might have drawn the ire of “some people he dealt with in a financing business he was involved with.”
Egco said his team is investigating the case and would “get to the bottom of this and get his attackers.”
The attack on Caballero came as the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) released its Global Impunity Index for 2019, ranking the Philippines as the fifth most dangerous country for journalists.
Egco said the report’s findings were expected due to the number of victims in an unsolved 2009 massacre in Ampatuan in which 58 people were killed, most of whom were journalists.
“The case, which is now nearing promulgation, has kept the country low on the list since 2009,” Egco said, adding that he was confident that the Philippines would be given a much improved ranking next year.
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According to the CPJ report, the Philippines has been among the worst five countries nearly every year since the index was first published in 2008. It confirmed that the ranking is due in part to the 2009 massacre.
The report noted that more than 200 killings of journalists remain unsolved in 13 countries.
Somalia was the worst country for the fifth year in a row in a ranking based on deaths as a percentage of each country’s population—25 unsolved killings in a country of 15 million people. Syria was second and Iraq third on the list.
The country with the largest number of unsolved killings was the Philippines with 41, followed by Mexico with 30, the CPJ report said.
It said that the countries on the list “represent a mix of conflict-ridden regions and more stable countries where criminal groups, politicians, government officials and other powerful actors resort to violence to silence critical and investigative reporting.”
