Juan Porres Pala more widely known as Jun Pala was a local journalist, columnist and commentator in the southern part of the Philippines who worked for DXGO radio. Pala was mostly knlwn for his large-scale work exposing corrupt politicians from Davao City and other parts of the region.
On the record, Pala was the target of two different attempts on his life before he was killed on September 6, 2003.
In 2016, testimony was introduced in the Philippines by a former hitman that allegedly linked President Rodrigo Duterte to the death squads that carried
out Pala's murder while Duterte was the mayor of Davao City. The office of the president denied the allegations.
Career
In the 1980s, Juan Pala's professional career began when he became the main spokesperson for a Filipino vigilante group called the Alsa Masa.The
vigilante group is best known for hunting down and killing Communist and corrupt politicians, and it has also been blamed for human rights abuses.
Pala was visible as the spokesperson for the group once he established his
own radio show that was dedicated to exposing corrupt politicians from the city of Davao.
After the city of Davao started listening to what Pala had to say he started to gain public support. This led Pala to form his own anti-communist group
named Contra Force. By the late 1990s, Pala leveraged his popularity by seeking office as a city counselor and was elected in 1998. Pala's career was not without controversy. Pala was slapped with a libel case and was suspended from his radio station for six months. After the six-month suspension
Pala was banned for life by the Association of Broadcasters in the Philippines for using inflammatory language while on air. With the aid of unknown influential person and on the basis of his popularity, he was able to have the ban lifted.Through all of the controversy and political pressure, Juan's family stated he never wavered from trying to make the city of Davao better. Juan's wife Louise stated that her husband aired critical commentaries against various government officials, including Mayor Rodrigo Duterte and President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. He had also exposed graft and corruption in the city involving some politicians.
Death
The first attempt on his life occurred on June 14, 2001. Pala was taking a taxi home from work when gun shots ripped through the taxi grazing him in the neck. Soon after the first attack on his life, Juan Pala and his family hired the services of bodyguards to protect them from future attacks.This near death
experience did not stop Pala from his work. Pala received death threats at the radio station. He was attacked again on April 29, 2003. According to Pala's
wife Louise, the death threats forced her husband to record his radio program from home via the telephone. Even though this was the safer option for Pala, he still preferred conducting his radio show from the studio.
The attack on September 6, 2003 was fatal. Juan Pala, 49-years old at the time of his murder, was gunned down by two men on a motorcycle while walking home from work one day.The night of his death, Pala was accompanied by his brother and two bodyguards. Juan's brother sustained minor injuries, and one of the bodyguards was hit while trying to take down one of the gunmen from the attack.[7] In all Pala was shot four times in the chest from the attack and he died instantly from his wounds.
References:
1. Conde, Carlos H. (September 8, 2003). "Shooting is the third slaying of a journalist in less than a month : Philippines radio personality is killed". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved April 7, 2016.
2.Juan "Jun" Pala". Committee to Protect Journalists. September 6, 2003.