Community journalist slain in Davao del Sur — NUJP

A community journalist was shot dead at his residence in Bansalan, Davao del Sur on Saturday evening, the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP) said.

The NUJP identified the victim as Orlando "Don Don" Dinoy, a reporter for Newsline.Ph and a block time anchor of Energy FM in Digos City. 

“An initial report said Dinoy was in his apartment when a still unidentified assailant barged inside his makeshift broadcast booth and shot him at close range,” NUJP said, adding the incident happened past 6 p.m.

“Bansalan PNP (police) is now conducting an investigation into [the] motive for the attack.”

Dinoy’s death came a day after the Philippines was still included among the worst countries when it comes to unsolved killings of journalists, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists' (CPJ) Global Impunity Index 2021.

Based on CPJ's report, the Philippines ranked seventh with at least 13 unsolved killings of journalists over the past 10 years.

Presidential Task Force on Media Security (PTFoMS) executive director Joel Egco said the rank was expected because the assessment covered a 10-year period.

“Likewise, there was no country specific report on the Philippines. This is the first time that it happened since we were included in the list more than a decade ago,” Egco said on Friday.

“There's no other way at looking at it but a huge leap, a great improvement in our collective effort to end impunity against media workers. This is due to the fact that each and every case, whether work related or not, does not escape the eyes of PTFoMS and we hold perpetrators to account,” the Palace official said. — VBL, GMA News