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Nueva Ecija Broadcaster Slain

NUJP Alert
December 8, 2006


11th journalist killed this year
Nueva Ecija broadcaster slain in front of broadcaster-wife

A broadcaster and former newspaper columnist in Nueva Ecija was shot and killed by two men while visiting his farm in Barangay (village) Sta. Arcadia, Cabanatuan City on Thursday.

Police said Ponciano Grande, 53, died instantly from five bullet wounds, reported INQ7.net. His death brings to 11 the number of journalists killed this year; and to 47 the number of journalists killed since President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo assumed presidency in 2001.

Grande, a member of the Nueva Ecija Press Club, used to write a column for the local weeklies The Recorder and Nueva Ecija Times. His colleagues said Grande stopped writing columns in 2002. Other sources told NUJP that Grande at the time of his murder was hosting together with his wife, Annie Liwag-Grande, a radio program aired over radio station dwJJ.

Grande’s wife was reportedly several meters from him when gunmen attacked.

Liwag-Grande said she left her husband in front of their jeepney along a road in Sitio Romantico to visit some neighbors there. A few minutes later, she heard gunshots and discovered that her husband was shot.

She said the gunmen, who were armed with a .45 cal. pistol, chased her but they did not harm her. She told policemen that the gunmen appeared to be in their teens.

(Media Safety Office)

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