Bicol broadcaster survives attack
Carlos ‘Caloy’ Sasis. (Photo by Angel de Mesa, Baretang Bikolnon)
A Bicol broadcaster survived an attack by two gunmen earlier this week as he was about to park his car in front of their radio station in Legazpi City.
Carlos Sasis, 41, anchor of daily radio program “Dos Manos” over Zagitsit News FM 100.3 told independent media outfit Baretang Bikolnon he heard gunshots and bullets hitting the wheels of his car just as he arrived at the station.
Sasis added he saw a bulky gunman trying to reload his gun after the first volley of fire.
The victim said he believed the attack was meant to harass him, “because if they really wanted to kill me, they should have just shot me straight, not (at) my car.”
Baretang Bikolnon quoted a witness as saying the gunmen had coffee at an eatery in front of the radio station along Imelda C. Roces Avenua in Barangay Gogon before the shooting.
Asked for possible motives behind the attack, Sasis said he himself was puzzled.
“I cannot think of any reason for them to do this to me. Personally, I do not aggravate anyone, even at my service as a barangay official,” he stated.
Sasis is a councilor of Barangay Cabangan, Camalig, Albay Province.
Police recovered three spent cartridges and an unspent bullet from the scene.
Baretang Bikolnon reported the police is in possession of a “clear footage from the CCTV.”
The National Union of Journalists of the Philippines issued an alert on the attack Friday.
The Presidential Task Force on Media Security (PTFoMS) for its part said they have already sent a team to Legazpi City Thursday to conduct an investigation.
“We are on it,” PTFoMS executive director and Presidential Communications Office Undersecretary Jose Joel M. Sy Egco said. # (Raymund B. Villanueva / Photos by Angel de Mesa, Baretang Bikolnon)
