DUMAGUETE CITY, Negros Oriental — The Philippine National Police (PNP) has created a task force to investigate the murder of a broadcast journalist who was shot in broad daylight by two still-unidentified male perpetrators in Barangay Daro, Dumaguete City, capital of Negros Oriental province, on Monday.
Sr. Supt. Edwin Portento disclosed on Wednesday the task force that will investigate the death of Edmund Sestoso, a radio anchor/commentator of “Tug-anan Power 91” on radio station DYGB-FM, will include the PNP, the intelligence community, the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI), and the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG), to name a few.
This comes as Undersecretary Joel Egco is scheduled to come to Dumaguete in relation to the death of the broadcast journalist, said Portento.
Even before Sestoso succumbed to multiple gunshot wounds on Tuesday afternoon, more than a day after he was shot, the PNP regional director had directed the PNP in Negros Oriental to conduct a thorough investigation on his death, said Portento.
“We will be coordinating with the NBI, the other agencies and the Prosecutor’s Office,” he said.
He also asked the media for help in providing the police with information or encouraging potential witnesses to do the same so that it will lead to the identities of the perpetrators and the mastermind.
Portento disclosed that the PNP had initially received “flyers” from potential witnesses but police investigators had difficulty afterward getting the statements from them.
Sestoso, 51, married, of Dumaguete City, was shot by two men riding in tandem on a motorcycle at about 10:30 a.m. Monday, April 30, as he alighted from the tricycle he was riding from the radio station to his boarding house in Barangay Daro shortly after his regular morning program.
He was rushed to the nearby Silliman University Medical Center where he was operated on, but on Tuesday afternoon, at about 2:30 p.m., he succumbed to multiple organ failure secondary to multiple gunshot wounds, doctors said.
Portento revealed that police investigators are eyeing three possible motives to Sestoso’s death, namely, “personal, professional, and affiliation.”
Asked what he meant by “affiliation”, Portento intimated Sestoso’s supposed connections with and inclination to the left.
Portento also declined to comment on whether Sestoso’s death was political in nature, considering that he was, for a while, a blocktimer and propagandist of Governor Roel Degamo prior to his hiring as Tug-anan sa Power 91 anchor.
The police director went on to say that the caliber .45 bullet casings and slugs will be cross-matched with other similar pieces of evidence taken from previous shooting incidents here.
He also admitted the possibility the perpetrators were guns-for-hire. (Mary Judaline Partlow/PNA)
