MANILA, Philippines — The Philippine National Police is looking at a possible land dispute as the motive behind the shooting of Pampanga journalist Jesus Malabanan, who was shot dead by a motorcycle-riding assailant in his native Samar province.
According to initial reports from the Calbayog City Police Station, Malabanan was shot in the head while watching television inside his store in Brgy. San Joaquin, Tinambacan District around 6:30 p.m. on Wednesday.
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Speaking to reporters at his press briefing Monday, Police Gen. Dionardo Carlos, PNP chief, said that a Special Investigation Task Group had already been formed and assigned to investigate the case.
"It's being investigated. The PNP condemns the murder of Jess Malabanan, being a member of the media... We're looking at the motive: Is it connected to the job or not? He is from Pampanga but is married to someone from Calbayog, a Waray," he said.
"Initially, the angle they're looking at is land dispute. Is the work of Malabanan connected to the land dispute?"
Carlos added that the SITG already had a person of interest in connection to the land dispute angle.
In law enforcement, the term "person of interest" is used when identifying someone who is only possibly involved in a criminal investigation but who has not actually been arrested or formally accused of a crime.
Per the PNP's Procedures in the Investigation of Heinous and Sensational Crimes, shootings against media practitioners are considered heinous crimes.
'We reject the emerging narrative'
The PNP is harping on the same angle as the Presidential Task Force on Media Security, which claimed over the weekend that Malabanan's killing was carried out for reasons not related to his work, despite his reportage on President Rodrigo Duterte's brutal "war on drugs" which has killed at least 6,100 according to official police figures.
"That’s one of the things we’re looking into, his changing of career. We’re taking a look at land negotiations, maybe he fought with someone over this," PTFoMS Executive Director Joel Sy Egco told state-run People’s Television in Filipino.
Egco went as far as saying that personal conversations he had with Malabanan’s colleagues at the Manila Standard found that the slain journalist had not been writing critically about anyone and had only produced “feel good” stories.
His task force continues to claim that the Duterte administration "is truly working [to safeguard] press freedom" and has often brushed off claims that the government is clamping down on press freedom in the country.
At least 22 journalists have died since President Rodrigo Duterte assumed power in 2016.
READ: Media watchdog lists Duterte among world 'press freedom predators'
In an editorial published Monday, the Manila Standard said that Egco did not reach out to any member of the Manila Standard’s news desk in any official manner before he came up with this conclusion.
"Nobody is boasting that media practitioners are getting killed here. We are ashamed of this. We are making our outrage known, and hoping we would have leaders who would care enough to act decisively on this," the Manila Standard said in its editorial.
"We reject the Palace narrative that all is well and that journalists are finally safe, because this is an insult to our colleagues who have been killed, and to all journalists who are still fighting daily, big and small battles, just to do their job."
Malabanan was a defense reporter in the ’80s and ’90s, then based in Angeles City, Pampanga. He served as a stringer for the Manila Times and Reuters as well as a correspondent for Bandera before writing for the Standard.
Manila Standard in its editorial pointed out that Malabanan assisted a Reuters team in its coverage of the drug war in 2018. Reuters eventually had to help the journalist go into hiding after he received death threats.
"Why, then, would somebody who wrote feel-good stories resort to these measures?" the paper asked. "That’s a fact, not propaganda."
"Under this administration, journalists are being attacked – killed, threatened, insulted, persecuted – for daring to do their jobs in an environment that claims to value press freedom but tries to justify all the ways to stifle it."
— with reports from Xave Gregorio and The STAR