Radio commentator and veteran journalist Percy Mabasa, also known as Percy Lapid, was shot dead in his vehicle in Las Piñas City, near the capital Manila, on the evening of 3 October. The Philippine National Police reported that unidentified motorcycle-riding men shot Mabasa twice while the victim was on his way to his online broadcast.

The PNP added that the attackers escaped and an investigation is underway to identify and locate them.

The National Union of Journalists of the Philippines condemned the killing, which it said was evidence that journalism remains one of the country’s most dangerous professions. “That the incident took place in Metro Manila indicates how brazen the perpetrators were and how authorities have failed to protect journalists as well as ordinary citizens from harm,” asserted the NUJP.

Known popularly as Percy Lapid, Mabasa’s “Lapid Fire” radio program featured criticisms of both Marcos, Jr. and his predecessor Rodrigo Duterte, whose term ended in June. In recent broadcasts, he had criticized the practice of ‘red-tagging’ – the imputing of communist links to government critics in order to delegitimize them or incite attacks against them.

He also criticized the current of ‘historical revisionism’ that casts the dictatorial regime of Ferdinand E. Marcos, Sr, as a ‘golden age of prosperity and stability’. The latest upload on his Youtube channel featured a commentary on anti-communist extremist Lorraine Badoy’s red-tagging, and her harassment of Manila Judge Marlo Magdoza-Malagar.

Mabasa’s family, in a statement, strongly condemned the killing. “It was committed not only against Percy, his family, and his profession, but against our country, his beloved Philippines, and the truth,” said the Mabasa family.

They said that Mabasa’s sharp commentaries managed to debunk the barrage of fake news not only in radio, but on social media as well. “We demand that his cowardly assassins be brought to justice,” they added.

Mabasa is already the second of two journalists killed under the Marcos II administration. On 18 September, radio broadcaster Rey Blanco was stabbed to death in Mabinay town in Negros Oriential. Both journalists were hard-hitting Marcos critics.