Cotabato journos ask gov’t for regular updates on slain colleagues’ cases

KIDAPAWAN CITY—Journalists in the province of Cotabato have demanded an update on the investigations into media killings in the province.

At least 50 radio, print, television and online news journalists who gathered here on May 4 signed a manifesto calling on the government, particularly the Presidential Task Force on Media Security (PTFoMS), to show them the results of the investigations on the cases of colleagues killed in the province in recent years.

The request came following the forming of a special investigation team that would focus on the trial of the suspects charged with the July 10, 2019, killing in this city of broadcast journalist Eduardo “Ed” Dizon.

“While we greatly appreciate and deeply thank the authorities in extending great effort to seek the truth and resolve the killing of our fellow broadcaster Eduardo ‘Ed’ Dizon, we also eagerly want the authorities to check and give updates on the result of investigations being done on the killings of our three other media colleagues,” the Cotabato media said in the manifesto, copies of which were sent to the Office of the President, the PTFoMS, the Department of Justice, the Commission on Human Rights and the Philippine National Police.

The other cases that they wanted an update on were those of Benjie Caballero, a news stringer for DXND radio in Kidapawan who was gunned down on Oct. 31, 2019, in Tacurong City; Orlando Dinoy, a radio news stringer for dxND and Ronda FM in Kidapawan and a former correspondent for the Philippine Daily Inquirer who was killed inside his apartment in Bansalan, Davao del Sur, on Oct. 30, 2021; and Jaynard Angeles, an anchor for Bandera News FM in Kidapawan City who was gunned down in Tacurong City on Jan. 22, 2022, but whose assailants remained at large even if his killing was captured by CCTV cameras.

Surrender of ‘gunman’

“It has been five years or more since their killings yet, with the exception of Ed Dizon’s [case], we have not heard of any development on their cases,” said the manifesto read before Mark Anthony Tayco, Cotabato chapter president of the National Union of Journalists in the Philippines.

The suspected gunman in Dizon’s murder, identified as Junell Jane Andagkit Poten, also known as “Junell Gerozaga,” surrendered to police authorities in Makilala town last week after the PTFoMS increased the reward for his arrest to P700,000.

Local police also previously slapped murder complaints against two local broadcasters implicated in the Dizon killing: Dante Encarnacion Tabusares, alleged leader of the Kabus Padatuon Community Ministry International Inc. in Cotabato; and Sotero Jacolbe Jr., who was acquitted by the Davao City Regional Trial Court last March 8 due to the failure of state prosecutors to present evidence that would implicate him in Dizon’s murder.

Following Jacolbe’s acquittal, Tabusares, who used to be in hiding, presented himself to the Davao City police and, through his counsel lawyer Israelito Torreon, applied for a bail bond for his temporary liberty.

By Williamor A. Magbanua