Gunmen attack Taberna’s coffee shop

MANILA, Philippines - Unidentified gunmen fired shots at the coffee shop owned by ABS-CBN broadcaster Anthony Taberna in Quezon City yesterday morning, damaging glass windows but injuring no one.

Chief Insp. Rodel Marcelo, chief of the Quezon City Police District’s Criminal Investigation and Detection Unit, said two gunmen sprayed bullets at the façade of Ka Tunying’s Coffee Shop along Visayas Avenue in Barangay Vasra at around 2 a.m. 

The gunmen fled on two motorcycles driven by two other suspects.

Marcelo said that one of the gunmen even asked the security guard of the adjacent Chubs Chaser’s restaurant if he had a firearm.

When the guard said he had none, the two gunmen started firing.

Marcelo said no one was hurt since the establishment was closed at the time and only glass windows were damaged.  

He said the security guard of Taberna’s coffee shop was inside the establishment and was sleeping when the incident happened.

Police investigators recovered 15 bullet shells of caliber .45 pistols. Marcelo said that they are looking at all possible motives, including Taberna’s job as a broadcast journalist.

“He (Taberna) had criticized many persons. His job as a broadcaster could be connected,” Marcelo said.

The police said robbery is an unlikely motive because the suspects did not enter the coffee shop. 

He said that investigators have not yet established if the shooting is some form of harassment.

Marcelo said a closed-circuit television (CCTV) camera installed near the coffee shop caught the suspects on camera but the footage is not clear and the gunmen could not be indentified.

Asked if the incident is connected to Taberna’s membership in the Iglesia ni Cristo (INC), Marcelo said they have yet to receive information related to his involvement in the religious group.

In a radio interview, Taberna did not want to speculate on the motive of the suspects as he is relying on the investigation of the Quezon City police.

He also dismissed reports that the incident was connected to his religion and his being a nephew of expelled INC minister Isaias Samson Jr., saying that he has no connection with the latter after he was expelled.

Samson had filed charges of illegal detention against INC leaders.

Taberna recalled he had also been harassed five years ago.

In 2010, he said that an incendiary device exploded outside the garage of his neighbor in Bagbag, Quezon City and damaged two vehicles.

Police told Taberna that he was the target of the bombing.

After the latest incident, Taberna said that he would adjust his routine to secure himself and his family.

Meanwhile, Isabela Rep. Rodolfo Albano III urged Justice Secretary Leila de Lima yesterday to order a thorough investigation into the strafing of Taberna’s coffee shop.

Albano said investigators should look at all possible angles in the incident.

“Is it related to his job, to his newly opened café, to his religious affiliation, to the case filed by his uncle?” he asked.

Senators condemned the recent attacks against media personalities, saying that government must undertake all necessary measures to stop these incidents from taking place.

Sen. Francis Escudero said that the killing of radio anchor Cosme Maestrado in Ozamiz City and the strafing of a café owned by Taberna in no uncertain terms must be condemned.

“The government must do something to end the culture of impunity over crimes against the media,” Escudero said.

Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano, for his part, said that the latest attacks validate the reports about the Philippines being one of the most dangerous countries in the world for media personalities.

Citing the data provided by the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines, Cayetano noted that 30 journalists have been killed from 2010 to 2014.

“As the Fourth Estate, the media is considered to be one of our nation’s most powerful tools against graft and corruption, and is an essential ingredient for Philippine democracy,” he said.

– With Jess Diaz, Marvin Sy