31st under P-Noy’s presidency

We have run out of words of condemnation in the face of yet another colleague’s death by murder.

Maurito Lim was about to alight from his car in front of radio station dyRD in Tagbilaran City, Bohol, where he had been hosting the daily program “Chairman Mao on Board,” when a lone gunman onboard the now all-too-familiar motorcycle shot him around 10:35 a.m. of Feb. 14, 2015. Reports say the bullet hit him in the left jaw and exited on the other side of his face.

He was rushed to Governor Celestino Gallares Memorial Hospital, just across the street from the radio station, where doctors tried, in vain, to save him. Lim was declared dead around 1:15 p.m.

Maurito Lim is the second journalist murdered in Bohol, the 172nd since 1986, and the 31st under the P-Noy administration.

We beg the indulgence of our hardworking government officials if we preempt them—lest in their concern over the impunity with which journalists have continued to be murdered under their watch, they chalk this one up as another “nonwork related” death—by pointing out that colleagues in Bohol have confirmed that, before his death, Lim had been hitting hard at local officials linked to the illegal drug trade.

While we seriously doubt demanding justice will get us, or Maurito Lim’s family and colleagues, anywhere, we challenge the government to prove us wrong by acting swiftly to solve the case, arrest the killers and, most important, the mastermind who ordered his death.

To the family of Maurito Lim and to the Bohol media community, we extend our sympathies and our solidarity. Rest assured that we will be with you all the way in the search for justice.

To our colleagues in Bohol, we urge you to unite and remain resolute in serving our people in the face of continued threats to press freedom.

—ROWENA C. PARAAN, chair, National Union of Journalists of the Philippines, [email protected]