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Alert

Vehicle of critical radio station bombed, following regular threats

(CMFR/IFEX) - An unidentified individual on a motorcycle bombed the service vehicle of dxCC (828kHz), a radio station of the Radio Mindanao Network (RMN), while it was parked in front of the station in Cagayan de Oro city, Misamis Oriental, on 13 March 2007, at around 2:45 a.m. (local time). Cagayan de Oro is in northern Mindanao, the Philippines' second largest island.

No one was reported hurt in the incident, but it destroyed the van and damaged another vehicle, a motorcycle and the station sign. According to Jac Gumapac, one of the radio station's commentators, the assailant opened the window of the L300 vehicle and lobbed a molotov cocktail inside. Gumapac said that the attack may have been provoked by the station's commentaries.

"Our station is really known to be hard-hitting when it comes to political commentaries. We do not fear anyone, even the top officials of the local government," Gumapac said in Filipino.

Fire fighters put out the fire caused by the bomb. Gumapac estimated the total damage at P675,000 (approx. US$13,500). Gumapac said that it was usual for the radio station to receive threats almost every week. Before the bombing incident, dxCC station manager Saldy Ocon, who is also a political commentator in the station as well as a city councilor, had received a death threat via text (SMS) message. Gumapac said Ocon did not pay much attention to the threat.

DWRC Radyo Cagayano, a radio station in Baggao, Cagayan Valley, was burned down by eight men on 2 July 2006. Cagayan Valley is a province north of Manila. The unidentified assailants burned down the station's transmitter and broadcast booth and took the cell phones of six staff members before tying and blindfolding them (see IFEX alert of 10 July 2006).

The CMFR database has recorded 62 journalists/media practitioners killed in the line of duty since 1986. Fifty-eight (58) of the victims were provincial journalists.