Three broadcasters killed in eleven days

CMFR/Philippines – A radio blocktimer was shot dead in Tagum City, Davao del Norte province, on 11 December 2013. He was the third broadcaster killed in the last eleven days.

Tagum City in the Mindanao island group is some 1,400 kilometers south of Manila.

Rogelio “Tata” Estrada Butalid was in front of the Radyo Natin radio station where he worked, and was about to go home after his blocktime radio program when two men on a motorbike stopped near him. The back-rider alighted from the vehicle and shot Butalid at close range.

The Tagum City police said witnesses heard six gun shots.

Butalid hosted the blocktime radio program “Ang Kamatuoran” (The Truth), which aired on Radyo Natin Tagum 107.9, at 8 to 9 a.m., weekdays.

Radyo Natin Tagum station manager Elmer Tandoc told CMFR that Butalid last discussed on the air the conflict between two electric cooperatives in the province.

Butalid’s program was sponsored by one of these two cooperatives, the DANECO-NEA, Tandoc said.

Butalid was also on his third and last term as village councilor in Barangay (village) Mankilan, confirmed Tandoc and the police.

But Butalid had been working in the radio industry since he was 17, Tandoc added.

Two other radio broadcasters were killed in the last eleven days. Joash (Joas) Dignos was killed on 29 November 2013 in Bukidnon province and Michael Diaz Melo (Mike Milo) on 06 December 2013 in Surigao del Sur.

The killings came in the heels of Presidential Communication Operations Office Secretary Herminio “Sonny” B. Coloma Jr.’s saying during a 22 November press briefing that “Siguro naman po, makatwirang sabihin na sa kasalukuyan ay hindi na po umiiral iyan (Maybe, it’s justified to say that there is no more impunity.).”

But after the killings, Coloma denounced the killing of Dignos, and later, that of Melo.

Butalid was the 22^nd journalist/media worker killed in the line of duty in the Philippines under the administration of President Benigno Aquino III, and the 11^th this year.