Federico “Ding” Gempesaw, a radio political commentator in Cagayan de Oro, Philippines was shot and killed by masked gunmen on June 29.
Gempesaw, 62, hosted a block-time program Bitayan sa kahanginan (Gallows on-air) on Radyo Natin, a local broadcaster.
He was a staunch supporter of the late Cagayan de Oro mayor Vicente Emano who made him head of the city hall office that manages the local government-owned markets.
According to witnesses, Gempesaw had just stepped down from his taxi outside his home when masked gunmen on a motorcycle shot him twice and fled.
The attack, which is the first media killing in the city, took place on the eve of the assumption of presidency by the country’s new president Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr.
Journalists in Cagayan de Oro expressed worry that the killing could signal the start of attacks on media workers in the city and called on the President to look into the killings of media workers and start bringing their killers to justice.
He was the 24th and last media worker killed since 2016 when former president Rodrigo Duterte rose to power, and the 196th since democracy was restored in the Philippines in 1986, based on data from the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP).
This story first appeared on RadioInfo.asia