Community Journalist, Family Unhurt in Shooting Attack

CMFR/PHILIPPINES—A journalist from Bangued was unharmed after gunmen fired at her family’s house last 14 May 2009. Bangued is the capital of Abra, a province approximately 408 kms northwest of Manila.

Marjorie Bandayrel-Trinidad, news editor of the weekly community newspaper Abra Today, said she and her husband were awakened by the sound of breaking glass at around 3:30 a.m. (local time) last May 14. Trinidad realized that their house had been fired at when she picked up a .45 caliber slug near their bed. Her husband and two-year-old son were not hurt in the incident.

Trinidad told the Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility (CMFR) in a phone interview that two other bullets which hit a wall were not recovered. She said her husband heard a car fleeing.

Trinidad and her family have temporarily moved out of their house for safety. Police are providing security while the case is still under investigation.

Trinidad and her colleagues believe the attack may be related to her recent article on an alleged anomaly at a local electric company. She said she received a warning last 13 May 3009 about a threat against her.

“Someone told me that the general manager (of Abra Electric Cooperative or Abreco) had issued a threat against me. But I did not expect anyone to fire at our house three times,” Trinidad, who was also radio broadcaster at dzBA station before working for Abra Today, said in a 15 May 2009 GMANews.TV report.

The general manager of Abreco, Loreto Seares, denied that he ordered the attack. Seares said he also told Trinidad, her editor in chief, and Bishop Leopoldo Jaucian in a 15 May conversation that he was not the mastermind.

“It was definitely not me,” Seares told CMFR in a 19 May phone interview.

Trinidad wrote a front-page article in the 9 to 13 May 2009 issue of Abra Today on allegations that Abreco could not explain why the board of directors and division heads of Abreco each received a vehicle. The alleged anomaly was also tackled in the editorial of the same issue of the Abra Today, published by the Diocese of Abra.

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