Outspoken radio presenter gunned down in Misamis Oriental province

Reporters Without Borders is outraged by today's murder of radio presenter Aristeo Padrigao in Gingoog City, Misamis Oriental province (in the north of Mindanao island), and calls on the authorities to give the police additional resources in order to be able to carry out a thorough and rapid investigation. "Being a radio journalist continues to be a very dangerous activity in the Philippines because of the government's inability, in certain parts of the country, to combat organised crime, which is often linked to corrupt politicians. Given the nature of Padrigao's comments, especially about illegal logging, and the threats he had received, the police should work on the assumption that he was killed in connection with his work." Padrigao was gunned down by two men aboard a motorcycle outside a school where he had just dropped off one of his children. The police and his colleagues said he had been threatened for criticising illegal logging on his morning programme "Sayre ang Katilingban" (Know Society) on Gingoog City-based FM Radyo Natin dxRS. He also wrote for the Mindanao Monitor Today, a regional daily.