Another journalist shot dead in Mindanao

CMFR/Philippines—The associate publisher of Lightning Courier, a news weekly in Mindanao, was shot dead by a lone gunman just outside his house in Sultan Kudarat, Shariff Kabunsuan, on the early morning of 19 February 2007. Mindanao, a predominantly Muslim area, is the second largest and southernmost island of the Philippines.

According to Sultan Kudarat police chief Ismael Mama, Hernan Pastolero was sitting in a basketball court outside his house in Bulalo village around 6:20 (local time) when an unknown assailant shot him twice in the back of the head using a .45 caliber pistol. Mama added that the killer, who was around 25-30 years old, also had a lookout.

Avelino Acoymo, publisher of Cotawato Express, who has worked with Pastolero, said that he did not know anyone with whom the late associate publisher had any conflict.

“He was a good person and I don’t think he had any enemies,” Acoymo said.

Mama, who was tasked to head the Task Force Pastolero created by Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao police director Joel Goltiao, said that the police are still establishing the motive behind the killing as no one has been willing to give a statement on the incident.

According to Acoymo, Pastolero, who started in the broadcast industry in the 80s, was more focused on the business aspect of the newspaper rather than on writing stories. Pastolero also served as editor in chief of the defunct Mindanao Newscast, a former community paper in the same area.

Pastolero’s son, Hernane Pastolero Jr., said his father was not a hard-hitting journalist and the stories he wrote in the past were only about local news in their province. He also said that he does not know of any threat his father had received.

“My father was a good person. He was well respected in the community and he even extended help to those in need,” Pastolero Jr. said.

Pastolero was the second journalist to be killed in Sultan Kudarat after the 24 March 2005 killing of Marlene Esperat, columnist of The Midland Review, who was exposing corruption in the local government. Esperat’s killers, Gerry Cabayag, Estanislao Bismanos, and Randy Grecia, were convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment on 6 October 2006 after a celebrated ten-month trial.

The death of Pastolero coincided with the visit of the United Nations special rapporteur on extrajudicial killings, Philip Alston, who is in the country investigating the killing of political activists and journalists.

The Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility has recorded 61 journalists/media practitioners killed in the line of duty since 1986, 30 of which occurred during the present Gloria Macapagal Arroyo administration. In only four cases out of 61 have there been any convictions.

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