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MANILA (AFP): A Filipino journalist who survived an earlier attempt on his life by pretending to be dead was killed in front of his home on Tuesday (November 10), authorities said, in the latest such murder.
Virgilio Maganes, 62, who was a commentator for the DWPR radio station in the northern province of Pangasinan, was shot six times by armed men on a motorcycle, police Major Christian Alucod told AFP. He died instantly.
The National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP) condemned the killing, which it said was the 18th since President Rodrigo Duterte took office in 2016.
“His death is an indictment against the vain boast of this government that press freedom is alive and well in the country,” the group said.
Police said the motive for the killing was unclear.
The NUJP said Maganes survived a 2016 shooting by “playing dead” after being beaten.
A note left at the scene during the first attempt on his life read: “I am a drug dealer, do not imitate me.”
Such messages were common in extrajudicial killings during the height of the government’s campaign against illegal drugs that has resulted in thousands of deaths.
The Philippines is one of the most dangerous countries in the world for journalists and most of the murderers go free.
The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists said last month that the Philippines ranked seventh on its Global Impunity Index, an annual ranking in which the nation has been a mainstay since the index was created in 2008.
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