AFP/Manila

The police chief of a Philippine town was suspended after a national newspaper reporter who he argued with was murdered, in the latest of a string of media killings, authorities said yesterday.

Rubylita Garcia, 52, a reporter with a popular tabloid, was shot dead on Sunday in her home about 30 kilometres from the nation’s capital, Manila, national police spokesman Chief Superintendent Reuben Sindac said.

Sindac told reporters the police chief of Tanza town, which is close to where Garcia lived and worked, was suspended yesterday “so he can not affect the ongoing investigation”.

“This is administrative relief because of reports the Tanza police chief figured in an altercation with the victim before the incident,” Sindac said.

However Sindac emphasised this did not necessarily mean the local police chief, Superintendent Conrado Villanueva, was a suspect.

The altercation between the pair was allegedly a heated verbal argument at a press conference, according to to its publisher, Benny Antiporda, although the details were not immediately clear.  Garcia had worked for the Remate newspaper for 10 years covering police and local government issues, according to Antiporda.

“She was a hard-hitting veteran news reporter, always going after perceived corruption and anomalies wherever she was assigned,” he said.

The National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP) denounced the killing, saying that if Garcia’s murder was work-related, it would be the 20th such media killing since President Benigno Aquino took office in 2010.

It said Garcia’s murder highlighted Aquino’s inability to change a “culture of impunity” in the Philippines, in which powerful figures regularly kill or intimidate their critics without fear of facing justice.

None of the cases since Aquino came to power have been solved, according to the NUJP.

In the worst ever attack on Philippine media workers, 32 journalists were among 58 people murdered in 2009, allegedly by leaders of a powerful political clan who were trying to stop a rival from running in elections.

Those leaders are on trial, although the case is expected to take many years to
complete.