This story was taken from Bulatlat, the Philippines's alternative weekly newsmagazine (www.bulatlat.com).
Vol. VI, No. 20, June 30, 2006

Armed Men Burn Baggao Community Radio Station 

BY BULATLAT
Posted 12:19 p.m., July 2, 2006

Eight armed men suspected to be soldiers burned the station of a community radio in the mountainous town of Baggao in Cagayan province (some 500 kilometers north of Manila). 

The suspects barged in the station of DWRC 90.1 FM Radyo Cagayano, located at the Barangay Centro, Baggao town proper at 2 a.m., and awakened the five crew of the station.  The armed men then forcibly took the cellphones of the station crew and forced them out before setting the station on fire. 

The station is owned by the Cagayan province-wide peasant organization Alyansa Dagiti  Mannalon ti Cagayan (Alliance of Farmers in Cagayan) or Kagimungan.  Radyo Cagayano had begun airing only in May this year, broadcasting for only two hours, at 4 to 6 p.m. daily.   

This was not the first attack on the community radio.  In 2003, after the groundbreaking ceremony at the station site,  soldiers attacked a Kagimungan leader, cutting off his arm with a bolo. Bulatlat

© 2006 Bulatlat ■  Alipato Media Center

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