Tabloid reporter killed

On the eve of this year’s World Press Freedom Day (03 May) celebration, a provincial tabloid columnist was gunned down by unidentified men in Mandaluyong City, just east of Manila.

Nicolas Cervantes, a columnist of Surigao Daily and several other local papers in Mindanao (about 400 nautical miles from Manila), was shot three times Tuesday (02 May) by two reported unidentified men and was declared dead on arrival at a local hospital.

According to witnesses, the two gunmen shot the Cervantes soon after the victim left his home in Mandaluyong City. The assailants walked away and boarded a passenger jeep to flee.

However, aside from being a columnist, police said Cervantes worked as a “confidential agent” of the government’s Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR).

Police have yet to determine the motive for the attack, but Eastern Police District (EPD) director Chief Superintendent Charlemagne Alejandrino said it is “definitely not related to his work as media practitioner.” According to investigations by the EPD, Cervantes, who has been based in Manila, has not practiced his profession for the last two years.

In the commemoration of the World Press Freedom Day, National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP), together with the International Federation of Journalists, Alyansa ng Filipinong Mamamahayag (Alliance of Filipino Journalists), Association of Responsible Media, and the College Editors Guild of the Philippines, lamented over the lack of genuine freedom of expression in the country.

A total of four journalists were murdered this year, including Cervantes. However, only Orlando Mendoza of Tarlac Profile was killed in the line of duty last April 2.

Fifty seven journalists were killed in the line of duty since the restoration of democracy in 1986, according to the Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility’s database. Around half of the work-related murders took place during the Arroyo administration. ###

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