PCIJ's media killings series on GMA News TV

MANILA, Philippines - Albert Martinez’s case is unique. Perhaps the only mediaman who was shot and almost killed but who lived to tell his own story — and identify his assailants. His case and that of Marlene Esperat, the journalist who exposed the fertilizer fund scam, air tomorrow night at 9:55 on GMA News TV in the latest installment of the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism’s (PCIJ) Media Killing Series.

Albert was a radio broadcaster in North Cotabato shot twice by armed men while motoring home along a stretch of the national highway. Fortunately, one bullet merely struck his jacket. Unfortunately, the other bullet smashed into his torso and left him paralyzed for life.

While he hovered between life and death, Albert managed to identify his attackers as army corporal Alvaro Obregon, Ronilo Quinones and Romeo Araneta. But not even this would assure him of a speedy case. His case bounced around between the Ombudsman and the provincial prosecutors for years before it started moving in court. Meantime, Albert is jobless and paralyzed from the waist down. 

Marlene, on the other hand, was the unlikely community journalist who uncovered one of the biggest exposés: The fertilizer fund scam.

She was the first to discover the overpriced purchase of fertilizers and farm inputs by the Agriculture Department since she had been an agriculture employee herself. But in 2005, a gunman casually walked into Marlene’s home in Sultan Kudarat and shot her in the head.