A Filipino journalist was shot dead in the eastern Philippines in the fifth deadly attack on reporters in the country this year, police said yesterday.
Rolando Julia, 41, was on his way home late on Friday when gunmen opened fire at him in Magarao Town in Camarines Sur Province, 250km southeast of Manila.
Magarao police chief Victor Asuela said Julia suffered three gunshot wounds in different parts of his body and died in a nearby hospital.
Julia was a broadcaster of a local radio station and a reporter for a weekly newspaper in Naga City. He was the fifth journalist to be killed so far this year in the Philippines.
Asuela said the main suspect in the killing was a man who got into an argument with Julia during a wake two days before the attack. Police were hunting the man, whose identity has been withheld.
Julia’s killing came one week after two broadcasters of a nationwide radio network, Dennis Cuesta and Martin Roxas, were killed in separate attacks.
Last year, four journalists were murdered, while 13 were slain in 2006. Most of the previous killings and attacks against journalists in the Philippines have remained unresolved.
Muslim separatists killed at least seven Philippine soldiers and wounded a dozen more in an ambush yesterday on the troubled southern island of Mindanao, the military said.
The attack came four days after government troops halted a fierce offensive against Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) rebels in another part of Mindanao and is the latest outbreak of violence since a territorial deal with the MILF was halted by the Supreme Court earlier this month.
The military said the soldiers, traveling in a convoy, were on their way to deliver troop salaries to a remote detachment when they were ambushed by around 100 MILF rebels, armed with rocket-propelled grenades and machineguns.
“Our troops were taken by complete surprise,” Colonel Reynaldo Ardo, an army brigade commander in Lanao del Sur Province, told reporters. “Our boys were never given a chance to fight back. After 10 minutes of heavy gunfire, the rebels withdrew to a nearby wooded area. We’re sending additional forces to punish the rebels. We can’t allow this to happen.”
Four regular soldiers and three part-time troopers were killed in the first volley of machinegun fire. A dozen other troopers were wounded as they sought cover behind the wrecked trucks and van.
Last week, air force planes bombed MILF positions for four straight days, triggering an exodus of around 160,000 people in seven towns in North Cotabato. Manila had accused the guerrillas of occupying Catholic farms in the area.
Analysts have said both sides were flexing their military muscles after the Supreme Court’s temporary halting of the territorial deal marked another setback in long-running talks to end a separatist conflict that has killed over 120,000 people.
Legal experts expect the court will rule that the agreement, which gives a future government of an expanded Muslim homeland wide political and economic powers, is unconstitutional.
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