MANILA (Reuters) – Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr on Sunday strongly condemned the killing of a Filipino journalist and ordered the police to conduct an investigation to deliver the perpetrators to justice.
The journalist, Juan Jumalon, also called “DJ Johnny Walker”, was shot by unidentified assailants whereas broadcasting from his residence in a southern Philippine city on Sunday morning, the Nationwide Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP) stated in a press release, citing preliminary stories.
“Assaults on journalists won’t be tolerated in our democracy, and people who threaten the liberty of the press will face the total penalties of their actions,” Marcos stated in a publish on X platform.
Media watchdog NUJP additionally condemned the “brazen killing” which it stated was caught on a livestream of Jumalon’s present. Jumalon’s residence in Calamba, Misamis Occidental served as his radio station.
Jumalon’s killing brings to 4 the variety of journalists killed since Marcos took workplace in June 2022, and to 199 since democracy was restored within the Philippines in 1986. That determine included 32 killed in a single incident in 2009.
The Philippines has considered one of Asia’s most liberal media environments, but it surely stays one of many world’s most harmful locations for journalists, notably in its provinces.
It ranked because the eighth worst nation relating to prosecuting killers of journalists, based on 2023 World Impunity Index launched by the Committee to Shield Journalists launched this week.
(Reporting by Karen Lema; Enhancing by Michael Perry)