Filipino reporter fears his being surveilled could be connected to Ampatuan Massacre

A journalist in the southern Philippine city of General Santos claims that unidentified men have been watching his house. General Santos City is located in the southernmost Philippine island of Mindanao. It is approximately 1,049 kilometers south of Manila.

Aquiles Zonio, a correspondent of the Manila newspaper "Philippine Daily Inquirer", said two men riding tandem on a motorcycle took his photograph last 24 October 2010 while he was in front of his house.

The following day, on 25 October 2010, Zonio said a motorcycle-riding man was "peeking through our gate... He seemed to be checking if my motorcycle was there."

In a text message to the Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility (CMFR) last 29 October, Zonio said the surveillance might be related to his continuing reports on illegal small-scale mining or on the Ampatuan Massacre.

Zonio was one of the journalists who were supposed to be part of the Mangudadatu convoy last 23 November 2009, but he and two others had to go back to their Sultan Kudarat hotel to get their valuables.

Two other men he did not know also checked out his house on 26 October (around 8:40 p.m.), and on 27 October (around 4:30 a.m. local time), leading Zonio to suspect that they were trying to establish what his daily routine was. Zonio has reported the incidents to the local police.

On 23 November 2009, about 100 men allegedly led by Andal "Unsay" Ampatuan Jr. stopped and killed 58 persons including 32 journalists who had joined the wife and sisters of now Maguindanao Governor Esmael "Toto" Mangudadatu in filing his certificate of candidacy in Barangay Salman, Ampatuan town, Maguindanao. Unsay Ampatuan and 195 others are now facing multiple murder charges before a local court in Quezon City.

Comments

If he were in Thailand...

If he were in Thailand... would he be dead by now?

What has happened to the 11 red shirts kidnapped by the police in Chiangmai?

They were never produced, were they? Was a list of their names ever produced? Do their families know they are in DSI custody, and where? The DSI claimed they 'asked' to be placed in protective custody.

It's hard for me to believe that anyone in Thailand would ask to be put under the custody of the Thai police. I don't believe it.

What has happened to the 11 men abducted by the DSI in Chiangmai?

PPT links to Yet Another

PPT links to Yet Another Piece Of Regime Dis-Information Obediently Delivered By The Bangkok Post As News.

Stand back and observe the CRES/SLORC and Ministry of Dis-Information/Bangkok Post in 'deft' cooperation :
Agencies alerted to possible violence

The Centre for the Resolution of the Emergency Situation has warned all security agencies to be on high alert for possible violence - including attacks on important people - from now until the New Year, CRES spokesman Col Sansern Kaewkamnerd said on Friday.

Col Sansern said this after a CRES meeting chaired by Defence Minister Prawit Wongsuwon.

The meeting raised for discussion reports by the National Intelligence Agency (NIA) that from the month of November until the New Year certain groups of ill-intentioned people may instigate violence in crowded areas and attack important people to erode the public's confidence in the safety of their lives and property.

Therefore, the CRES has instructed all intelligence agencies including the National Security Council, armed forces and police to keep watchful eyes on activities of groups under suspicion.

Especially under watch are activities of the red-shirts...

So we have Prawit -> CRES -> Sansern -> Bangkok Post

The message?

'Certain groups' [ - that would be the CRES/Bangkok Post - ] of ill-intentioned people may instigate violence in crowded areas... to erode the public's confidence in the safety of their lives and property.

And then perhaps 'the public' will clamor for 'protection' from those groups of 'ill-intentioned people'... by those same 'ill-intentioned people' themselves?

Meanwhile the whole exercise in dis-information will be used as an excuse to intimidate, harass, arrest, disappear... the red shirts.