A Filipino radio journalist was shot dead near his home in the suburbs of Manila, police announced on Tuesday (October 4th), in a country where many media professionals are regularly targeted.
The archipelago is one of the most dangerous regions in the world for journalists and most of the perpetrators of these homicides have not been convicted.
Percival Mabasa was driving to the premises of the DWBL radio station, where he worked, on Monday when two assailants on motorcycles shot him dead, Las Pinas police chief Jaime Santos told the Teleradyo news channel. .
"
He was involved in his work and that may be the reason for his murder
," he added.
Practice of “red marking”
Percival Mabasa, known as Percy Lapid, openly criticized former President Rodrigo Duterte as well as the policy pursued by the government of his successor, Ferdinand Marcos Jr. the regime of the current president's father, as well as the practice of "
red flagging
" aimed at blacklisting people accused of being communist sympathizers, reported the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines.
The press advocacy group described the journalist's death as "
brazen
".
This shows that "
journalism remains a dangerous profession in the country
", he stressed.
Percival Mabasa is the second journalist to be killed since Marcos was elected president of the Philippines on June 30, the union added.
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Manila's acting police chief announced the establishment of a group of investigators to investigate the circumstances of the journalist's death.
In an October 2021 report, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) ranked the Philippines 7th on its global impunity index, counting 13 unsolved killings.
Since the creation in 2008 of this index which highlights the most dangerous countries for the practice of journalism, the Philippines has featured regularly.
Since 1992, at least 150 journalists have died, according to the CPJ website.