By Dateline Philippines
MANILA, Philippines – A re-electionist town mayor in Davao del Sur allegedly threatened to have a correspondent of the Philippine Daily Inquirer killed after the elections, the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP) reported Monday.
According to the NUJP, Orlando Dinoy reported that Bansalan Mayor Edwin Reyes said he would “have somebody kill (you) after elections” when they chanced on each other at the town’s central warehouse around 5 p.m.
“If I did not pursue my plan to kill you before, now wait after the election and I will let somebody kill you,” Dinoy quoted the mayor as saying.
He said the mayor, who is running under the Nacionalista Party, apparently got irked on seeing him covering the campaign caravan of Vice Mayor Melchor Arches, who is running against Reyes under the Nationalist People’s Coalition.
Dinoy said Reyes also blamed him for being the source of alleged black propaganda being used in his rival’s campaign materials.
The NUJP has reported an increasing incidence in harassment and attacks on media practitioners covering the campaign and the elections since last week.
The worst so far has been disappearance of a radio stringer and the alleged mauling of a father and son television team, all from Cagayan de Oro, in Camiguin Island on Sunday.
Rolando Gono went missing after he texted his partner Rene Abris, volunteer reporter of Hot FM in Cagayan de Oro, minutes after he asked permission to go home ahead because a child had gotten sick.
Abris said this was after he had filed a report on the mauling of Herbert Hugo Dumaguing and his son Hubert, allegedly by Camiguin Governor Jurdin Jesus “JJ” Romualdo and his followers, after the two, of cable channel TV 13, chanced upon alleged vote buying in a village in Catarman town.
