A radio broadcaster was broadcasting live on Facebook when someone shot him inside his home studio in the southern Philippines.
The Associated Press reported on Monday that viewers of the live broadcast witnessed the killing, when a man claiming to be a listener of the show walked into the studio and then fired two bullets at broadcaster Juan Humalon.
Philippine police said the attacker stole a gold necklace the journalist was wearing with someone waiting for him outside the home of Kumalan, 57, in Calamba city. The southern state of Misamis Occidental.
According to the Associated Press, authorities have launched an investigation into the motives behind the attack and whether it was related to Kumalun’s work as a journalist in a country considered one of the most dangerous countries in the world for journalists to work in.
Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. strongly condemned the incident and said he had “ordered the National Police to find, arrest and investigate the culprits”.
Marcos, in a statement published on the “X” site, said, “I strongly condemn the killing of Juan Humalan… Attacks on journalists cannot be tolerated in our democracy, and those who threaten the freedom of the press must be dealt with. The full consequences of their actions.”
For its part, the National Association of Journalists of the Philippines said Kumalon was the 199th journalist killed in the country since 1986, according to the Associated Press.
The attack was “all the more condemnable because Kumalon runs his own radio studio in his house,” the association explained in a statement.
A video clip showed the attacker entering the studio, but his face was not shown during the broadcast, before he shot the journalist, who was killed on his way to hospital, sitting in his chair in front of the camera and taking two bullets. .
Police are examining the house’s surveillance cameras to identify the killer.
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