TAGUM CITY — Unidentified assailants onboard a gray Honda Fit vehicle gunned down Gregorio Ybañez, the president of the Davao del Norte Press and Radio-TV Club (DNPRC), 9 pm Tuesday outside his home in Mirafuentes Subdivision, this city.
Ybañez was rushed to Bishop Reagan Hospital after he sustained heavy multiple shots in chest, arm and lower part of his body, but doctors failed to recuperate him.
“What I know so far is that he was shot more than six times. And prior to the shooting incident, Ybañez’s neighbor has been suspicious of the Honda Fit vehicle parked near his residence,” Pamela Gay Perales, DNPRC’s vice-president for Print told DavaoToday.
Media organizations on Wednesday condemned the killing and scored the Aquino administration for allowing the culture of impunity and violence to exist in the country.
“If it was a killing motivated by his being a member of the media, then this death deserves condemnation. If it was a death brought by his being a broadcaster, then it is another smudge on the record of the Aquino administration, a proof of how the administration, of how the government nurtures culture of violence and phenomenon of impunity,” Jefry Tupas, NUJP-Davao spokesperson said.
For its part, the DNPRC condemned the incident and urged the authorities to exhaust all means to arrest the perpetrators.
Perales said that Ybañez left his house to attend a business meeting at Big 8 Corporate Hotel on Tuesday afternoon. “I learned from his son that he went out to attend a meeting.”
Perales said “police authorities have yet to verify through a CCTV camera recording in the hotel if such meeting actually transpired in the hotel.”
She added that Ybañez has received several death threats before.
When asked as to the motive behind the killing of Ybañez, Perales believed that it was connected to the recurring conflict of Davao del Norte Electic Cooperative (Daneco). “I personally believe that this has something to do with the management issue between Daneco-NEA and Daneco-CDA,” stressed Perales.
Fondly called by his colleagues as “Loloy”, Ybañez was the publisher of a weekly newspaper Kabuhayan News Services in Tagum City. He served as the director of Davao del Norte Electric Cooperative under the faction of National Electrification Administration (NEA). He also worked as a radio blocktimer in Gold FM, a local radio station in this city. His program “Isumbong Mo Kay Ben” (Tell it to Ben) reportedly tackles pressing issues related to Daneco where he took an active and instrumental role in defending Daneco-NEA’s case in several legal disputes against its rival—the Daneco-CDA (Cooperative Development Authority) group.
Ybañez was the third journalist killed in Tagum City following the brutal killing of his colleague, Rogelio “Tata” Butalid, a radio broadcaster last December 11, 2013. In the 1980’s, Noel Miranda, publisher of a local newspaper, was the first journalist to be killed in the province.
A source who requested anonymity told DavaoToday that for this year, “Ybañez no longer held the position as the director of the Daneco-NEA Board.” But the source said, “he still called the shots in some of the management decisions within the NEA Board.”
In a separate interview Wednesday, Police Inspector Anjanette Tirador, public information officer of Tagum City Police, said that the authorities are currently pursuing an investigation. Tirador speculated that three assailants might have killed Ybañez. The investigation team, according to Tirador, has also found out that the gray Honda Fit vehicle used by the assailants was “tinted.”
“We assure the family that we will conduct an in-depth and thorough investigation in order to solve the present case,” Tirador said.(davaotoday.com)
