Philippines condemns 'barbaric' killing of broadcast journalist

MANILA — The Philippine President's Office called on Oct 23 for an investigation to leave no stone unturned in bringing to justice the killers of a broadcast journalist in a southern province.

Despite a media environment that ranks as one of the most liberal in Asia, the Philippines remains one of the world's most dangerous places for journalists, particularly in its provinces.

Maria Vilma Rodriguez, 56, was shot three times by a lone suspect on Oct 22 in a store near her home in Zamboanga City, the police said, in an incident condemned by the office of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and a journalist group.

"These kinds of vile and atrocious acts have no place in our nation, which values freedom, democracy, and the rule of law above all," the Presidential Communications Office said in a statement, describing the attack as barbaric.

The police arrested a suspect on Oct 23, Zamboanga City police official Kimberly Molitas said, but declined to identify the individual.

The police were looking at a family feud as a potential motive, she added.

The killing of Rodriguez, a mother of four who was also a community official, takes the number of journalists killed since Marcos took office in June 2022 to five.

It takes the wider tally of journalists killed in the country since democracy was restored in 1986 to 200, data from the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines showed, including 32 in a single incident in 2009.

"We are urging the Zamboanga City police to probe deeper into this," the union said in a statement posted on Facebook. "We don't need a tale of another unsolved case that ended up as archives or statistics."

In terms of its efforts to prosecute the killers of journalists, the Philippines was ranked the eighth worst in the world by the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists in 2023.

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