Freelance Media Account Executive Gunned Down

CMFR/PHILIPPINES – A freelance media account executive was fatally shot by still unidentified assailants on 06 June 2019 in Quezon City, Metro Manila.

Adam Moraleta, a 56-year-old resident of Brgy. Holy Spirit in this city, was shot at 7:25 on Marcelino Street. According to the initial investigation by the Quezon City Police District, two men onboard a motorcycle shot Moraleta at close range.

 Moraleta was identified by news reports as an account executive for different newspapers, including the broadsheet Daily Tribune and the tabloid Saksi. In a videotaped statement,  Juliet Lacza, OIC General Manager of state-run channel PTV-4, said Moraleta was formerly affiliated with the blocktime program Tinig ng Marino. Tinig ng Marino director Raffy Ayeng confirmed to CMFR that he employed Moraleta as account executive in November 2018 but that he was no longer part of the program staff by March this year.

In a statement, the National Press Club (NPC) identified Moraleta as one of their active members. NPC said following the killing of Rubylita Garcia in 2014 and Joaquin Briones in 2017, Moraleta was the third NPC member slain in the last five years.   

Jared Moraleta, the victim’s son, told CMFR in a phone interview that he reported his father missing last June 6 when he did not come home. He was only informed that his father, whom the police were unable to identify at first, had been shot when he went to the barangay hall two days later.

The younger Moraleta said his father did not say anything about any threats to his life before he was killed. He said he looked at his father’s phone and social media accounts and did not find any. In an Inquirer report, Guillermo Eleazar, chief of the National Capital Region Police Office, said the authorities are looking at two possible motives for the killing. Moraleta, a Palawan native, had been helping friends involved in a land dispute in the municipality of Culion in this province. A former staff account executive of tabloid Remate Express, Moraleta and his former co-workers had filed an illegal dismissal case against the company. His son told CMFR his father was supposed to attend a hearing on June 11 and was about to receive settlement money.