Ecija radioman is 11th journalist killed in 2006

A broadcaster and former newspaper columnist in Nueva Ecija was reportedly gunned down by two men while visiting his farm in Sta. Arcadia village, Cabanatuan City on Friday. The Media Safety Office based in Quezon City of the International Federation of Journalists said Ponciano Grande, 53, died instantly from five bullet wounds bringing to 11 the number of journalists killed this year. Grande, a member of the Nueva Ecija Press Club, used to write a column for the local weeklies The Recorder and Nueva Ecija Times, according to the IFJ office in Manila. He stopped writing columns in 2002. Grande at the time of his killing was hosting together with his wife, Annie Liwag-Grande, a radio program aired over radio station dwJJ. Grande's wife was reportedly several meters from him when gunmen attacked. Liwag-Grande told reporters that she left her husband in front of their jeepney along a road in Sitio Romantico to visit some neighbors there. A few minutes later, she heard gunshots and discovered that her husband was shot. She said the gunmen, who were armed with .45 cal. pistols, chased her but they did not harm her. She told policemen that the gunmen appeared to be in their teens. Grande, said press freedom advocacy groups, is the 47th journalist killed since President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo assumed presidency in 2001. -GMANews.TV