Reporter killed in Manila gun attack —police

A reporter was killed in a gun attack Friday evening in Manila's Quiapo district, a radio report said Saturday morning.

Super Radyo dzBB radio identified the victim as Alex Balcoba Sr., a reporter of "Brigada" tabloid. 

The victim's press ID card posted on Facebook by photographer Mer Layson

Police chief Inspector John Guiagui of the Quiapo Police Station told the media that Balcoba was talking to his wife's friend when a gun-wielding suspect appeared and shot the victim in the head.

Balcoba was an official of the Manila Police District press corps, the report said.

Citing witnesses, Guiagui said the suspect fled on a motorcycle.

Recovered from the scene of the crime was a bullet shell of yet undetermined type of firearm.

Police are investigating the incident, even as they are tracing the owner of the motorcycle being used by the suspect.

174th since 1986

Citing a statement from the National Press Club, a report from Agence France-Presse (AFP) said colleagues described Balcoba as a news reporter and columnist at the People's Brigada, who had written about the Manila police since the 1990s.

Also, AFP quoted an official fo the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP) as saying that Balcoba is the second journalist to be murdered in the Philippines this year, and the 34th since 2010 when President Benigno Aquino came to power.

He is also the 174th journalist killed since a bloodless uprising ended the Ferdinand Marcos dictatorship 30 years ago.

But one of the deadliest attacks against journalists took place in the Philippines in 2009, when 32 media people were among 58 people killed in a single-day election-related violence in Maguindanao province in the southern Philippines. — LBG, GMA News