Kalinga radioman first media fatality under Aquino admin

(Updated 10:50 p.m.) BAYOMBONG, Nueva Vizcaya – A radio commentator was shot dead Saturday night in Kalinga province, the first journalist killed in the five-day-old Aquino administration. Jose Daguio, 75, was killed while he was having dinner in his home in Barangay Tuga in Tabuk town around 8 p.m., according to police reports. He sustained wounds on the right side of his body from a shotgun and was rushed to the Kalinga Provincial Hospital, but was declared dead on arrival. Daguio was a reporter-commentator of Radyo Natin Tabuk and a part-time columnist of a community newspaper, according to municipal police. “As of now we are still facing a blank wall since according to the victim’s family, there are no known threats to his life," said police investigator Jose Candelario of Tabuk Police. He said they are not discounting the possibility that the killing was work-related since Daguio was a veteran radio announcer. However, Police Superintendent Virgilio Laya, Kalinga police provincial director, said Daguio was no longer an active journalist. He said the victim was a regular anchor-reporter of the government-operated DZRK-Radyo ng Bayan in the 80s until he retired.
Dagio was the first media fatality under the week-old administration of President Benigno Aquino III, who is being pressured by local and international media groups to put a stop on media killings and hasten the investigation of the more than 100 journalists killed during the nine-year Arroyo administration. According to the National Union of Journalists in the Philippines (NUJP), 139 media practitioners have been killed since Aquino’s mother, the late President Corazon Aquino, restored democracy in 1986. Of this number, 102 killings occurred during the term of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo from 2001 to 2010. The number includes the 32 journalists murdered in the infamous Nov. 23 massacre in Maguindanao province last year — a carnage blamed on the powerful Ampatuan political family. The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has tagged the Philippines as the most dangerous place in the world for media workers. - KBK, GMANews.TV