Street Thugs, Gov't Employee Charged with
Murder of Ilocos Norte Journalist
Even if two police
officers cannot agree as to the nature of the killing of an Ilocos
Norte-based radio journalist, the Philippine National Police (PNP) now
considers the case closed with the filing of murder against four suspects.
BY ACE ALEGRE
Northern Dispatch
Reposted by Bulatlat
LAOAG CITY— Is this a
case of two police officers contradicting each other? One claims that the
murder of an Ilocos Norte-based radio journalist was neither politically
motivated nor work-related, but another says that it could be
work-related.
Street thugs and a
government employee are now suspects in the December 20, 2006 murder of
Andres “Andy” Acosta, 46, of the DZJC Aksyon Radyo, an affiliate network
of the Manila Broadcasting Company (MBC).
Ilocos Norte Police
Director Sr. Supt. Roman Felix said that murder cases were filed against
Joseph Caldazo, an employee of the Department of Agriculture, Nemesio
Agbanaoag, Adulf Calzado and Gilbert Tarubac who ganged up on Acosta.
The murder case
against the four suspects filed on December 29, 2006 has already been
raffled last January 4 to Fiscal Rosemarie Ramos. Batac town police
station chief Supt. Ben Rayco said that she found probable cause in the
murder.
Rayco said that as
far as the Philippine National Police (PNP) is concerned, the case is now
closed.
Acosta was on his way
home to Batac town after a Christmas party in Laoag City (487 kilometers
from Manila). While riding his motorcycle, he was stabbed. He still
managed, however, to bring himself to the Mariano Marcos Memorial Hospital
also in Batac where he died.
Except for Joseph
Calzado, the three other suspects are said to be street thugs. Rayco said
that the suspects were having a drinking spree at the house of Calzado
located just along the national highway in Dariwdiw, Batac when the
motorcycle-riding Acosta passed by.
Felix said that
Acosta's slay was neither politically motivated nor work-related, contrary
to earlier claims that the radio journalist’s stabbing was linked to an
earlier court case he was involved in and even his hard-hitting radio
commentaries. "It is just an ordinary street crime," Felix said.
Rayco, however, said
that prior to the incident, Acosta reported through his radio program
incidents of stoning of motorists by street thugs in the same area where
he was ganged up.
Acosta is the 12th
journalist killed in 2006, the 48th under the administration of Pres.
Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and the 85th since the restoration of democracy in
1986 after the fall of the Marcos dictatorship. Bulatlat
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