A Philippine journalist has been shot dead in an ambush, police said yesterday, the latest such attack in one of the world’s most dangerous countries for the media.
Christopher Guarin was attacked late on Thursday by two unidentified men on a motorcycle as the 41-year-old radio commentator and newspaper publisher was driving in the southern port of General Santos, police said.
His wife sustained a superficial wound on her arm, while their nine-year-old daughter was unharmed, police investigator Gerald Jubelag said.
He said no suspects had been arrested, but authorities were looking at a possible business rivalry as a motive.
“He jumped out of the car, so we will not be caught by stray bullets,” said his widow, Lyn Guarin.
“I saw my husband lying on the ground helpless, pleading for his life. It fell on deaf ears,” she told reporters.
Freddie Solinap, business manager of the tabloid Tatak published by Guarin, said the victim had frequently received anonymous death threats, the last one a text message on his mobile phone hours before the attack.
“If you show up at the station tonight, we’re going to kill you,” it said.
Guarin later showed up for work and read out the death threat on his early-evening talk show on the dxMD station.
He had been investigated by police, but cleared in the shooting death last year of the circulation manager of a rival local newspaper publisher.
Guarin was the first journalist killed in the Philippines this year, said Edwin Espejo, an official of the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines, which has been campaigning for greater protection for reporters.
Media organizations and rights groups say the Philippines is one of the world’s most dangerous places for journalists, with six media workers killed and another wounded last year.
A total of 148 journalists have been killed in the country since 1986, according to the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines.
The deadliest year for the country’s media occurred in 2009, when 32 media workers were among 57 people murdered in the south, allegedly by members of a clan, who wanted to eliminate a rival’s political challenge.
In the sweltering streets of Jakarta, buskers carry towering, hollow puppets and pass around a bucket for donations. Now, they fear becoming outlaws. City authorities said they would crack down on use of the sacred ondel-ondel puppets, which can stand as tall as a truck, and they are drafting legislation to remove what they view as a street nuisance. Performances featuring the puppets — originally used by Jakarta’s Betawi people to ward off evil spirits — would be allowed only at set events. The ban could leave many ondel-ondel buskers in Jakarta jobless. “I am confused and anxious. I fear getting raided or even
Eleven people, including a former minister, were arrested in Serbia on Friday over a train station disaster in which 16 people died. The concrete canopy of the newly renovated station in the northern city of Novi Sad collapsed on Nov. 1, 2024 in a disaster widely blamed on corruption and poor oversight. It sparked a wave of student-led protests and led to the resignation of then-Serbian prime minister Milos Vucevic and the fall of his government. The public prosecutor’s office in Novi Sad opened an investigation into the accident and deaths. In February, the public prosecutor’s office for organized crime opened another probe into
RISING RACISM: A Japanese group called on China to assure safety in the country, while the Chinese embassy in Tokyo urged action against a ‘surge in xenophobia’ A Japanese woman living in China was attacked and injured by a man in a subway station in Suzhou, China, Japanese media said, hours after two Chinese men were seriously injured in violence in Tokyo. The attacks on Thursday raised concern about xenophobic sentiment in China and Japan that have been blamed for assaults in both countries. It was the third attack involving Japanese living in China since last year. In the two previous cases in China, Chinese authorities have insisted they were isolated incidents. Japanese broadcaster NHK did not identify the woman injured in Suzhou by name, but, citing the Japanese
RESTRUCTURE: Myanmar’s military has ended emergency rule and announced plans for elections in December, but critics said the move aims to entrench junta control Myanmar’s military government announced on Thursday that it was ending the state of emergency declared after it seized power in 2021 and would restructure administrative bodies to prepare for the new election at the end of the year. However, the polls planned for an unspecified date in December face serious obstacles, including a civil war raging over most of the country and pledges by opponents of the military rule to derail the election because they believe it can be neither free nor fair. Under the restructuring, Myanmar’s junta chief Min Aung Hlaing is giving up two posts, but would stay at the
RSS