Journalist who helped probe Duterte’s drug war shot dead
Published on: Friday, December 10, 2021
By: AFP
MALABANAN: Until the latest deadly attack there have been 87 media practitioners killed in the Philippines since 1992.
MANILA: A journalist who helped in the investigation into the drug war of President Rodrigo Duterte, has been shot dead – the latest casualty in the continuing violence against people working in the media in the Philippines.According to a police report, Jesus “Jess” Malabanan was shot in the head on Wednesday evening while watching television at his home in Calbayog, a city on the central island of Samar.
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The police report also said two unidentified assailants carried out the attack. They have not been arrested.
Malabanan was rushed to a private hospital in the city but was declared dead on arrival.
Caoilfhionn Gallagher, an international human rights lawyer and defender of journalists, described hearing the news of the latest killing as “chilling”, as she prepared for events in Oslo related to the Nobel Peace Prize.
The prize is being awarded to Filipino journalist Maria Ressa and Russian journalist Dmitry Muratov on Friday.
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Before Malabanan’s killing, data compiled by the National Union of Journalists in the Philippines (NUJP) showed that at least 21 journalists had been killed in the country since Duterte took over as president in June 2016.
In October, online journalist and radio commentator Orlando Dinoy was killed inside his apartment in the southern Davao region, Duterte’s stronghold. His suspected assailant was arrested and later charged with murder, but a government spokesman said Dinoy’s killing was not linked to his job.
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In May, a journalist-turned-politician was killed in the province of Capiz in central Panay island.
Until the latest deadly attack on Wednesday, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists said there have been 87 media practitioners killed in the line of duty in the Philippines since 1992, when it first started collecting data worldwide.
CPJ’s impunity index published in late October ranks the Philippines at seventh place worldwide for unsolved killings of journalists.
Including the recent killing of Malabanan, there have been at least 14 unsolved murders of journalists in the country. Most of the killings happened in the provinces, where journalists have lesser protection compared to their colleagues in the capital, Manila, when they cover controversial news stories.
As an independent journalist, Malabanan contributed stories to several Philippine-based publications.
In a social media post, journalist Manny Mogato, who was also part of the Reuters team that won the 2018 Pulitzer Prize in International Reporting, wrote that Malabanan “helped Reuters a lot in the drug war stories that won a Pulitzer in 2018”.
Reports said Malabanan had been threatened in his hometown of Pampanga in the north, so he had decided to relocate to Samar in central Philippines.
“I joined fellow journalists in condemning the assassination of Jess…it is totally unacceptable. Justice for Jess,” Mogato added.
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