Dindo Generoso, a news anchor at dyEM 96.7 FM Bai Radio, was shot at 7 a.m. on November 7, 2019, by two motorcycle-riding assailants in the city of Dumaguete, on the archipelagic nation’s central Negros Island, while driving his car to host his regular morning radio program, news reports said.
Generoso sustained eight gunshot wounds to his head and body, and was declared dead on arrival at the Silliman University Medical Center, the Philippine Star reported. Police found seven expended shells from a .45 caliber handgun at the crime scene, Rappler reported.
On November 8, 2019, authorities filed murder charges against four people, including a current and a former police officer, according to CNN Philippines, which quoted Negros Oriental police chief Julian Entoma. Police arrested two of the suspects, retired police officer Glenn Corsame and alleged driver Teddy Salaw, the night of November 7. The two other suspects, Roger Rubio, a police officer, and Tomasino Aledro, a businessman, were still at large, the CNN Philippines report said.
Entoma said he dispatched a crack team to hunt and arrest Rubio, the alleged gunman in the crime, according to local reports. The suspects were identified by police through CCTV footage of the crime scene, those reports said.
Entoma said police had not yet determined the motive for the killing, the Philippine Star reported at the time.
Central Visayas police chief Brigadier General Valeriano de Leon told independent news outlet Rappler that police investigators were pursuing leads related to Generoso’s broadcast journalism and a family land dispute.
Joel Egco, who at the time was executive director of the Presidential Task Force on Media Security, a government body tasked with resolving the cases of killed journalists, told CPJ by email that Generoso’s radio program dealt with development issues and was financed by the local government.
Egco said that Generoso’s killing may have been related to local politics, including a rivalry between the city’s mayor and a local congressman over the closure of a city project.
The National Union of Journalists of the Philippines, a local media advocacy group that investigates attacks on the press, told CPJ by email on September 11, 2023, that it considered Generoso’s killing to be related to his journalism until proven otherwise.
On February 9, 2022, a hearing in the murder case was scheduled at Regional Trial Court 42 in Dumaguete City, but was postponed until March 3 of that year due to a scheduled webinar for all the court’s stenographers, according to task force information provided to CPJ in August 2023.
Justice Undersecretary Jessie Andres was quoted in an April 19, 2023, GMA News Online report that saying Generoso’s murder trial had been dismissed because the accused had also died and that “criminal liability is extinguished with the death of the respondent.”
Paul Gutierrez, the task force’s executive director, told CPJ in a September 12 email that Generoso’s killing was deemed as “work-related” until further investigation clearly established that it was not the case and because some of the suspects were still at large. The case was “ongoing,” he said.
CPJ emailed and messaged via Facebook dyEM 96.7 FM Bai Radio in September 2023 but did not receive a reply.