A woman journalist was gunned down in front of her children on Thursday night in the southern Philippine city of Tacurong, police said yesterday. Police quoted witnesses as saying the gunman, accompanied by a lookout, entered the home of Marlene Esperat on Ilang-Ilang Street at about 7:30 p.m., greeted her "Good evening ma'am," then shot her on the right eye before fleeing on foot.Esperat died instantly, police said. The National Union of Journalist of the Philippines (NUJP) said the 45-year-old victim was apparently killed to silence her. Esperat had been writing mostly local corruption stories involving public and police officials for the weekly tabloid The Midland Review in Tacurong, a city in the province of Sultan Kudarat in Central Mindanao. George Esperat, the victim's husband who was not at home at the time of the attack, told investigators his wife had been receiving death threats from unidentified men. "My wife had many enemies because of her (corruption) exposés. I already told her to stop, but she just shrugged it off, saying, she's just doing her work," he said.
Charlie Garcia, the victim's elder brother, told the Inquirer that Esperat had been receiving threats, prompting the police to provide her with a security escort. But Garcia said his sister gave her security escort a Lenten break. "She told her bodyguard to go home as it was Holy Week," he said.