Cops probe beating up of Iloilo publisher

MANILA, Philippines –  The police director of Western Visayas created a task force yesterday to investigate the beating up of a newspaper publisher in Iloilo City on Wednesday.

Chief Superintendent Cipriano Querol Jr. also assigned two police escorts to prevent another attempt on the life of Lemuel Fernandez, publisher-editor of the local newspaper The Daily Guardian.

Fernandez sustained lacerated wounds on the right portion of his head and is presently confined at the St. Paul’s Hospital.

Querol directed Task Force Guardian to identify and file charges in court against two men who ganged up on Fernandez outside his office along M.H. del Pilar Street in Barangay Taal, Molo district, Iloilo City at around 9:40 p.m. last Wednesday.

Police investigators have not discounted the possibility that the attack on Fernandez was work-related.

“His (Fernandez’s) newspaper tackles very sensitive issues and it is not remote that it has aggrieved some people,” Querol said.

Querol directed police investigators to validate big issues being reported by The Daily Guardian as these could provide them with a “good lead” in their probe.