Mindanao broadcaster shot dead

Nadjid: Killed after Press Freedom Day (from Nadjid’s FB page)

A RADIO BROADCASTER in Mindanao was shot dead just a day after the country’s journalists marked World Press Freedom Day.

The National Union of Journalists of the Philippines identified the journalist as Richard Nadjid, 35, married, and a father of five. Nadjid was gunned down on May 4 near his home in Bongao, Tawi-Tawi, the southernmost province of the country. He was buried Monday afternoon.

Nadjid was a radio anchor and acting station manager of dxNN PowerMYX FM.

The Tawi-Tawi police however was quick to dismiss Nadjid’s murder as non-media related. Tawi-Tawi provincial police director Joselito Salido was quoted by Philippine Daily Inquirer reporter Julie Alipala as saying that Nadjid was just a radio disk jockey (DJ).

“DJ lang yun, at music-music lang ang pinagkakaabalahan ng mga DJ. Wala pang linaw na motibo sa pagbaril sa kaniya,” Alipala quoted Salido as saying. (He was just a DJ, and he just played music. There is no clear motive yet for his shooting.)

Alipala however quoted Babylyn Omar Kano, one of the radio broadcasters in Tawitawi, as saying that “Richard was a reporter of DXGD-AM of the Sulu-Tawi-tawi Broadcasting Foundation before he became OIC manager of DxNN POWERMYX FM.”

In an emailed statement, the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP) Zamboanga-Sulu-Tawi-Tawi chapter condemned Salido’s “insensitivity” and “ignorance.”

“That the chief of a province’s police force can display not only insensitivity but, more alarming, ignorance reflects on the quality of what is supposed to be the country’s main law enforcement agency and explains why media murders and human rights violations in general continue to be committed with impunity,” the NUJP statement reads.

Nadjid anchored a daily news and public affairs program every morning at dxNN.

Nadjid was gunned down Sunday night as he was going home after playing basketball at about 9:40 in the evening. Authorities have yet to identify the suspect or suspects of the shooting but have recovered an empty shell from a 45 caliber pistol from the scene of the crime.

In the same emailed statement, the NUJP added “Salido’s cop-out on Nadjid’s murder is not surprising given how his commander-in-chief, President Benigno Aquino III, himself set the tone by dismissing media killings with the blanket insinuation that these murders were prodded by motives other than the victims’ work.”

Nadjid is the second member of Tawi-Tawi’s media community killed and the 27th under the Aquino administration–the worst year-on-year record under any administration.

On June 25, 2007, radio broadcaster Vicente Sumalpong, production supervisor of Radyo ng Bayan, was gunned down. As with all media killings in this country, the mastermind remains at large. Cong B. Corrales