Lawmakers of the Makabayan bloc condemned the killing of veteran radio journalist Pervical “Percy Lapid” Mabasa, and at the same time called on the Marcos administration to immediately probe the brutal shooting.
READ: https://mb.com.ph/2022/10/04/las-pinas-cops-given-24-hours-to-solve-killing-of-percy-lapid/
House Resolution (HR) 468 expresses the House of Representatives’ strongest condemnation of the killing. It was filed by ACT-Teachers Party-list Rep. France Castro, Gabriela Women’s Party-list Rep. Arlene Brosas, and Kabataan Party-list Rep. Raoul Manuel on Oct. 6.
“Lapid is the second journalist killed since Marcos Jr. took office on June 30, after Rey Blanco, also a radio broadcaster, was stabbed to death on Sept. 18 in Mabinay, Negros Oriental...The Marcos administration must lose no time to hale to court not just the perpetrators who held the gun but, more importantly, the masterminds, and make them answer under the law,” they wrote in their resolution.
“In the CPJ’s 2021 World Impunity Index, the Philippines is the seventh in the list of countries worldwide where journalists are murdered and the perpetrators go free,” the militant solons cited.
They also demanded that the Marcos administration take concrete steps to prevent “red-tagging, maligning, troll-driven hate, and disinformation peddling".
"We hope that an investigation will immediately be called by the House Committee on Human Rights on the matter, because now the perpetrators are becoming bolder and more brazen in their attacks considering that the killing was done in Metro Manila and the last program of Percy Lapid was against red tagging. We believe that he was silenced due to his advocacy for truth," Castro said on Friday, Oct. 7.
Meanwhile, the Office of the President (OP) has said that it will oversee the investigation of the killing.