On Dec. 19, Larry Que, the publisher of Catanduanes News Now, became the fourth journalist to die in the Philippines in 2016 when he was shot in the head by a lone gunman as he was about to enter the building that houses his office. While any journalist’s murder is ominous, Que’s murder is doubly so because he appears to have been a peripheral victim of President Rodrigo Durterte’s “war on drugs,” which has metastasized into a war mostly on poor drug users while well-to-do ones remain insulated. He was killed after he wrote a column criticizing what he called the negligence of local officials in allowing a shabu (methamphetamine) laboratory in the island province until they were forced by events to bust it.
Journalist Deaths Down Globally
Journalist Deaths Down Globally
Journalist Deaths Down Globally
On Dec. 19, Larry Que, the publisher of Catanduanes News Now, became the fourth journalist to die in the Philippines in 2016 when he was shot in the head by a lone gunman as he was about to enter the building that houses his office. While any journalist’s murder is ominous, Que’s murder is doubly so because he appears to have been a peripheral victim of President Rodrigo Durterte’s “war on drugs,” which has metastasized into a war mostly on poor drug users while well-to-do ones remain insulated. He was killed after he wrote a column criticizing what he called the negligence of local officials in allowing a shabu (methamphetamine) laboratory in the island province until they were forced by events to bust it.