Probers still looking for leads on broadcaster's murder

COTABATO CITY, Philippines  --- Investigators have yet to get a definitive lead on the motive of the  murder of broadcast journalist Richard Najid in Bongao town in Tawi-Tawi on Sunday.

Najid, acting manager of the Bongao-based FM station dxNN, was not known to discuss hard issues when he went on air and was also known to  friends in the island province as friendly, “easy to get along with,” and courteous. 

Chief Supt. Noel Delos Reyes, director of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) police, said investigators are still trying to determine the identities of Najid’s killers.

“For now we still have no solid clue on whether it was work-related, or probably triggered by a personal grudge. Let’s give investigators enough time to finish their work,” Delos Reyes said.

Najid was riding his motorcycle on  his way home from a basketball game far from his house when motorcycle-riding gunmen trailing him  shot him from behind with caliber .45 handguns.

Najid was declared dead on arrival at a nearby hospital, according to a colleague, Babylin Cano Omar of Catholic station dxGD in Bongao.

“We are grieving over this sad demise of a brother journalist,” Omar on Tuesday told Catholic station dxMS in Cotabato City via mobile phone.

Najid had also worked as a reporter of the Catholic AM station dxGD in Bongao before moving to  dxNN.

While Najid’s work at dxNN was that of a station caretaker and a disc jockey, he also occasionally reported about current events in Tawi-Tawi, and also covered specific beats. 

ARMM Gov. Mujiv Hataman, in a statement, said he had ordered Delos Reyes to exhaust all means  to identify the killers of Najid.

Hataman has condemned the incident.

Najid was the second broadcast journalist killed in Bongao in a span of seven years.

Unidentified gunman shot dead in 2006 Vicente Sumalpong, a broadcast staff of a Radyo ng Bayan outfit in Bongao, a murder case that has since remained unsolved. - John Unson