Hard-hitting Bohol radio commentator shot dead on Valentine’s Day

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MANILA — A hard-hitting radio commentator of Station DYRD in Bohol was gunned down on Valentine’s Day by an unidentified gunman as the victim was about to disembark from his vehicle right in front of the station complex in Tagbilaran City.

Maurito Lim, 71, a block timer,and a retired engineer of the National Power Corp. (NPC), succumbed to a bullet wound in the head, according to Peter P. Dejaresco, station manager of DYRD.

Lim was the 34th journalist in the Philippines murdered the past four years.

The gunman used a .45 caliber pistol in killing Lim,

Rescue 117 of the Tagbilaran City government rushed Lim to the Dr. Celestino Gallares Medical Center, which is just a stone’s throw away from the crime scene but expired at about 1:15 p.m., two hours after he was shot.

The suspect hurriedly fled on board a motorcycle toward the town of Baclayon. Unfortunately, passers-by failed to list down the plate number of the gunman’s motorbike.

Police immediately launched a manhunt but as of Saturday night the suspect continued to elude arrest.

However, the police are trying to establish the plate number through a CCTV near the crime scene.

The employees of station DYRD and its sister enterprise, the Bohol Chronicle, panicked after hearing the gunshot nearby.

Dejaresco said Lim was about to disembark from his van when the gunman slipped from behind the victim’s vehicle and without warning shot the radioman at close range.

He was about to enter the station’s premises for his weekly radio program when he was shot.

Lim was a hard-hitting radio commentator, exposing the proliferation of drugs in Bohol.

Police are now thoroughly investigating on what triggered the slaying of Lim, the first Boholano journalist killed in Bohol.