A Filipino radio broadcaster in Mindanao received threatening SMS (text) messages on 14 and 17 May 2011.

Jun Albino of Magnum Music and News Radio 99.9 FM in Cagayan de Oro City first received a message on his mobile phone at around 6:51 a.m. (local time) of 14 May 2011, saying: "Mr. Albino, stop talking about Bigcas if you still want to attend the festival, or we might cut your head off." The Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility (CMFR) kept getting a busy tone when it tried to call the mobile number (+639333203705) used in sending the threat.

A correspondent of a Mindanao-based newspaper was arrested on libel charges last 4 March 2011 at his home in Indahag village, Cagayan de Oro City. Cagayan de Oro City is approximately 789 kilometers south of Manila.

(On November 23, 2009, a convoy on its way to file the certificate of candidacy of a gubernatorial candidate of Maguindanao province in the southern Philippine island of Mindanao was stopped on the highway in the town of Ampatuan by about a hundred gunmen. The convoy, which included 32 journalists and media workers, female relatives of the candidate, as well as six motorists who just happened to be tailing the convoy, were taken into the hills and murdered.