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ZAMBOANGA
CITY—A
production supervisor of the state-run Radyo ng Bayan
was killed while two others, including a fellow
broadcaster, were wounded in an ambush in Tawi-Tawi on
Monday.
The
police in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM)
reported that the incident took place at about 8 a.m. in
barangay Nalil, in the capital town of
Bongao.
Police
identified the fatality as Vicente Sumalpong, 36, of the
Philippine Broadcast Service’s dxDC-Radyo ng
Bayan-Tawi-Tawi.
Wounded
were Vema Antham, 40, a producer-announcer of the same
radio station and Sumalpong’s nephew, Roilan Hope Borja.
The
three were aboard a motorcycle on the way to the radio
station when one of two-men riding tandem on another
motorcycle fired at them with an automatic rifle.
Sumalpong sustained five gunshot wounds and died on the
spot, while Antham in the shoulder and Borja in the
right foot.
Spent
shells of Uzi automatic rifle and spent caliber .45 and
9-mm shells were recovered at the crime scene.
Chief
Supt. Joel Goltiao, ARMM police commander, said
investigators are eyeing two possible motives for the
killing. The first motive being looked into, Goltiao
said, is the victims’ work. The second is a possible
power play. He did not elaborate.
However,
the police are inclined to believe that the killing was
work-related because Sumalpong has reportedly been
helping the family of a shooting victim in the
documentation of testimonies and evidence for the filing
of a criminal case against the suspect in court.
The
earlier shooting incident, in which the victim died,
took place on Wednesday in Sanga-Sanga town.
Goltiao
said police tracker teams are pursuing the assailants in
Sanga-Sanga and Bongao, citing that Sumalpong’s killers
and the assailants of Wednesday’s shooting incident
could be only the same people.
“We are
trying our very best to solve the case. We are
conducting pursuit operations,” he added.
The
National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP)
reported that 52 journalists have been killed in the
country since 2001.
Meanwhile, proadministration congressmen expressed
suspicion on the motive of alleged military generals who
tagged the Armed Forces as responsible for the political
killings, saying that they should have come out in the
open long time ago when investigation is being conducted
by the Melo Commission and UN Rapporteur Philip Alston.
Lakas
Reps. Douglas Cagas of Davao del Sur and Benasing
Macarambon of Lanao del Sur, vice chairman of the
national defense and security committee, challenged the
alleged generals to come out and testify if they are
really true officers.
In a
joint statement, the two said that the alleged generals
should stop concealing their identities if they are
indeed serious about their allegations that the killings
of political activists were openly discussed during a
command conference of officials of the Armed Forces two
years ago.
Cagas
said that it was rather suspicious why the nameless
generals are speaking up only now about the killings
when they could have come out and testified during the
investigation conducted separately by Alston and the
Melo Commission.
Malacañang said on Monday that it supports the Supreme
Court’s planned summit on extrajudicial killings and
urged all concerned sectors to participate in the
discussions.
“We
support the move of the Supreme Court as far as calling
a summit is concerned. I believe this will accelerate
the solution of some cases and therefore everybody would
be enjoined to cooperate in this summit ... Let’s all
work together to put an end to this,” Press Secretary
Ignacio Bunye said in a news briefing.--With
F. Marasigan and M. Gonzalez |
