News update Manhunt on for CamSur broadcaster’s assailant

The Bicol regional police launched on Friday a manhunt for a man who shot a radio reporter in Camarines Sur last week.

Region V police director Superintendent Cecilio Calleja ordered on Friday a manhunt for Eric Vargas, one of the suspected gunmen who allegedly shot dwEB reporter Miguel Belen last week, a police statement said.

Belen sustained seven gunshot wounds after motorcycle-riding assailants ambushed him in Nabua town in Camarines Sur Friday last week.

The victim himself positively identified Vargas as one of his attackers from a rogue’s gallery presented to him by the police, the statement said.

Belen also accused Vargas of stealing some of his personal belongings, including his mobile phone, during the ambush.

Calleja likewise said in the statement that police are currently looking at politics as one of the motives for the shooting. Belen was a former publicist for a local politician, but he later switched sides and worked for the campaign of another candidate.

A police task force has already been formed last week to further investigate the attack.

Belen’s ambush was the second attack against a journalist under President Benigno Aquino III's administration.

On July 3, Radyo Natin Tabuk reporter-commentator Jose Daguio, 75, was killed in his home in Tabuk town, Kalinga province. He was also a part-time columnist for a community newspaper. Daguio is the first media fatality under the Aquino administration.—ACC/JV