Motorcyclists gun down journalist

GENERAL SANTOS, Philippines: A Philippine journalist has been shot dead in an ambush, police said today, the latest such attack in one of the world’s most dangerous countries for the media.

Christopher Guarin was attacked late yesterday by two unidentified men on a motorcycle as the 41-year-old radio commentator and newspaper publisher was driving in the southern port of General Santos, they said.

His wife sustained a superficial wound to her arm while their nine-year-old daughter was unharmed, said police investigator Gerald Jubelag.

He said no suspects had been arrested, but authorities were looking at a possible business rivalry as a motive.

“He jumped out of the car so we will not be caught by stray bullets,” said his widow Lyn Guarin.

“I saw my husband lying on the ground helpless, pleading for his life,” she told reporters.

Freddie Solinap, business manager of the tabloid Tatak published by Guarin, said the victim had frequently received anonymous death threats, the last one a text message hours before the attack. “If you show up at the station tonight we’re going to kill you,” it said.

Guarin later showed up for work and read out the death threat at his early evening talk show at dxmd station.

He had been investigated by police but cleared in the fatal shooting last year of the circulation manager of a rival local newspaper publisher.

A total of 148 journalists had been killed in the country since 1986, according to the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines. – SAPA-AFP