Two journalists shot down

In just a span of 60 hours, two journalists were gunned down in separate incidents in southern Luzon over the weekend.

Robert Ramos, tabloid reporter, and Ricardo Uy, a radio commentator and party-list leader, were shot dead by unidentified gunmen in the Laguna and Sorsogon provinces, last 20 and 18 November 2005, respectively.

Ramos, who worked for the Laguna-based paper Katapat, was waiting for a ride near the newspaper’s office at 7:30 p.m. Sunday (20 Nov.) in Cabuyao town (less than 100 kilometers south of Manila) when two armed men onboard a motorcycle stopped in front of him. One of the BIKERS then pulled out a .38 caliber handgun and shot the victim twice in the head, killing him instantly, according to a report by the Inquirer News Service.

On the other hand, Uy, an announcer of radio station dxRS and provincial chairman of the party-list group Bayan Muna (Nation First), was on the steps of his home in Sorsogon City, around 500 kilometers south of Manila, when he was shot five times by an armed assailant, using a .45 pistol.

Uy was pronounced dead on arrival at the nearby Sorsogon Doctors Hospital, after sustaining gunshot wounds in the head, mouth, and torso. The gunman casually walked away towards a nearby bridge and boarded a red motorcycle driven by another unidentified man, according to a report by national daily The Philippine Star.

The motives behind the two killing remain unclear, although Bayan Muna party-list congressman Teddy Casiño claimed that politics may be behind the murder of Uy. Uy was the second Bayan Muna leader-journalist killed this year after Romeo Sanchez. Sanchez was slain last 09 March in Baguio City.

While the motive for their slaying has not yet been determined, Uy and Ramos could be the sixth and seventh (55th and 56th since 1986) journalists to be killed in the line of duty this year.

Meanwhile, former broadcaster-turned-faith healer Johnny Midnight was shot by an apparently irate patron last 17 Nov. in Muntinlupa City, Metro Manila.

Midnight (Johnny Xerex-Burgos Joseph in real life), 65, survived a gunshot wound in the thigh. He is now recuperating at the nearby Asian Hospital.

The suspect, identified as Romilo Rose, was consequently arrested by the responding policemen.

Midnight came to prominence in the early 1980’s because of his toning water, pyramid cure, and nightly toning sessions over the radio.

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