A complaint for murder has been filed this week against a suspect in the killing of Mindanao-based journalist Orlando “Dondon” Dinoy who was shot dead inside his house on Oct. 30, 2021.
Joel Sy Egco, executive director of the government’s Presidential Task Force on Media Security, a case of murder has been filed against Brandie Mercado Campaner, the person identified by several eyewitnesses as the gunman who shot and killed Dinoy.
Egco said the Task Force is also “officially declaring” that Dinoy’s murder was not related to his work as a journalist, adding that there were three possible motives for the killing unearthed by investigators, including “a personal grudge in relation to the victim’s other endeavors.”
“While the case is deemed non-work related, we will continue to monitor and work double-time to catch his killers and whoever may be behind them,” said the government official. “There is no justification for murder,” he said.
Dinoy, who was a member of the LGBTQ community in the southern Philippines, died after being shot several times in his apartment in Bansalan town, Davao del Sur province.
Dinoy was the 21st journalist killed since President Rodrigo Duterte took power in 2016, said the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines.
In a report last month, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists listed the Philippines at seventh place in its Global Impunity Index, with 13 murders of journalists still unsolved.
The nation has been a mainstay in the annual index since it started in 2008.
