Police: Broadcast-Network Executive Gunned Down in Southern Philippines

Jeoffrey Maitem
2021.06.04
Cotabato, Philippines
Police: Broadcast-Network Executive Gunned Down in Southern Philippines Relatives hold up pictures of some of the 58 people – many of them journalists – who were massacred by the Ampatuan clan in November 2009, as they react to guilty verdicts handed down against 28 suspects tried in those killings, outside Camp Bagong Diwa in Taguig City, Philippines, the venue for the trial, Dec. 19, 2019.
Jason Gutierrez/BenarNews

Men aboard a motorcycle shot dead a woman executive for a radio and television broadcast network in the southern Philippines as she headed home to have lunch with her children on Friday, police and her employer said.

Yentez Quintoy, 39, chief of staff for the Brigada Group of Companies, was driving home alone when she came under attack shortly past noon in San Isidro, a village in General Santos City, South Cotabato province, police said.

Quintoy was rushed to the St. Elizabeth Hospital, said Capt. Abdulsalam Mamalinta, a local police commander.

“She was attacked and the suspects escaped from the scene,” Mamalinta said. “She expired upon arriving at the hospital.”

The attack appeared to be planned, with the perpetrators believed to have followed the target when she left the office, Mamalinta said.

Quintoy, however, was not known to have enemies, but police said they were not discounting that the motive could be tied to her work, the police captain said.

Brigada owns a radio and television network and publishes three newspaper editions that tackle local issues in the south.

With Friday’s shooting in South Cotabato, Quintoy became the 21st media worker gunned down across the Philippines since President Rodrigo Duterte took office in mid-2016.

Quintoy is the 192nd journalist killed since dictator Ferdinand Marcos fell from power 35 years ago.

Duterte, who is known for his combative style and profane language, once said that journalists “are not exempted from assassination, if you’re a son of a bitch.”

Quintoy’s employer condemned her killing and offered a reward of up to 1 million Philippine pesos (U.S. $21,000) to anyone who could provide information leading to the arrest of the suspects.

“Today is a sad day for Brigada Group. We lost one of our pillars to an assassin’s bullet at noon today as she was driving home, the usual thing she does, to have lunch with her children,” the company said in a statement.

“Brigada is in full cooperation with the proper authorities even as initial steps have already been made to get to the bottom of this,” it said.

“Her untimely demise is a big loss to the company at this time that we are all faced with numerous challenges brought by the pandemic.”

The Philippines is ranked as among the world’s most deadly places for journalists and other press workers. In November 2009, 32 journalists and press workers were among 58 people killed when members of the Ampatuan Clan, a political clan, massacred members of a rival family in the south of the country.

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