Bangkok, July 22, 2025—The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on Philippine authorities to launch a swift and credible investigation into Monday’s killing of Radio WOW FM journalist Erwin Labitad Segovia, who was shot by unidentified assailants while riding his motorcycle home after his morning broadcast.
Segovia was pronounced dead on arrival at a hospital in Bislig city in the southern province of Surigao del Sur, the Inquirer newspaper reported.
“Philippine authorities must leave no stone unturned in identifying and prosecuting those responsible for the murder of journalist Erwin Labitad Segovia,” said Shawn Crispin, CPJ’s senior Southeast Asia representative. “If President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s administration fails to act more decisively, the cycle of impunity will persist — and so will the media killings.”
The Presidential Task Force on Media Security, set up in 2016 to investigate media murders, said authorities had activated the Special Investigation Task Group on New Cases to look into the killing and were conducting a “hot pursuit operation” to apprehend the suspects.
Segovia, popularly known as “Boy Pana,” hosted a regular radio program on local governance and social issues, as well as a program to boost former local mayor Carla Lopez-Pichay’s campaign for May’s mid-term elections, the Inquirer reported.
The Philippines ranked ninth on CPJ’s most recent Impunity Index, a global ranking of countries where journalists’ murderers are most likely to go free. The country has appeared on the index every year since its launch in 2008.
This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ Staff.
CPJ Staff | Radio Free (2025-07-22T11:36:41+00:00) Radio journalist Erwin Labitad Segovia shot dead in the Philippines. Retrieved from https://www.radiofree.org/2025/07/22/radio-journalist-erwin-labitad-segovia-shot-dead-in-the-philippines/
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