Gallego, a radio commentator and tribal activist, was
gunned down in southern Surigao del Sur province just days before he was
scheduled to launch a new radio program. Provincial police said they had reached
no conclusions on the motive and had not identified any suspects, local news
reports said.
Gallego was on his motorcycle when he was shot several
times by assailants on motorcycles in Lianga town, according to local news
reports and the National
Union of Journalists of the Philippines. The reports said Gallego was due
to start a new block-time program on 92.7 Smile FM San Francisco. In 2010, he
had hosted a similar program on DXSF San Francisco Radio.
Block-timing is a common practice in the Philippines in
which broadcasters lease airtime from a radio station and typically solicit their
own advertising. A number of block-time commentators have been killed in the
Philippines, according to CPJ research. Gallego, a tribal leader of the Manobo
tribe, was a critic of local mining practices and was politically active in the
region.