Bayan Muna-owned radio station in Cagayan torched

CAMP ADDURU, Tuguegarao City — A community-based radio station funded by the militant party-list group Bayan Muna in Baggao, Cagayan was torched by ski mask-wearing men before dawn yesterday, police said.

Chief Superintendent Jefferson Soriano, Cagayan Valley police director, said eight armed men barged into Radyo Cagayano in the town proper of Baggao, a remote municipality, at about 2 a.m. and tied up its seven personnel, including five anchormen.

The unidentified men, brandishing M-16 Armalite rifles, then poured gasoline on the radio station’s equipment and facilities.

They divested the station employees of their cellular phones and left as flames engulfed the radio station.

Reports said the seven personnel, led by station manager Susan Mapa, managed to flee as the hooded men ransacked the place. They sought refuge in the nearby St. Dominic convent.

"There were eight of them. I saw one of them wearing a military watch. Another wore fatigue pants; his companions called him ‘Sir,’" station manager Susan Mapa said.

"This is a systematic suppression of press freedom," she said.

Soriano said Bayan Muna owned and managed the month-old radio station, adding that the pork barrel of Bayan Muna party-list Rep. Satur Ocampo funded its construction.

Probers estimated the property damage at P2 million.

Bayan Muna has criticized the Arroyo administration for the killings of its members and activists belonging to other left-leaning groups across the country, claiming these were part of a military crackdown. The government has denied the allegation. — With Cecille Suerte Felipe