MARIE Alexi “Maxi” Bolongaita was a call center agent and part-time disc jockey of 89.1 Power FM. She was also the daughter of veteran broadcaster Alex Bolongaita. Media people currently celebrating Cebu Press Freedom Week knew her for her participation in the Miss Press Freedom pageant in 2016. Her boss, Fr. Roberto Ebisa, said she only recently hosted the opening activities of the Broadcasters’ Month of the Kapisanan ng mga Brodkaster ng Pilipinas (KBP).
Maxi’s bloodied body was found Thursday dawn in her apartment in Nivel Hills, a few hours after she bravely fought a robber who was able to enter her place. She succumbed to two gunshot wounds in the chest. Policemen recovered from the crime scene a .22 revolver and a bolo. The robber was recently identified as Reynante Mambiar, who was brought to the Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center with a gunshot wound in the face, a stab wound and lacerations in his body.
Almost a month before that, John Ronli Calizar, a 22-year-old fast food worker, was sleeping in his girlfriend’s boarding house in Barangay Lawaan 1 in Talisay City when a man identified as Jessie Largo, allegedly a drug courier, and a companion mercilessly shot him supposedly out of jealousy. Ronli was the eldest son of Ferliza Calizar-Contratista, a former journalist and currently an officer of the Philippine Information Agency (PIA) in Cebu.
What happened to Maxi and Ronli is a reminder for us journalists, who are coincidentally celebrating both the Broadcasters’ Month and the Cebu Press Freedom Week, that we are not immune to the incidents of violence that hound society at large. In a way, their deaths have given us a clearer view of the issue that has gripped the country since President Rodrigo Duterte assumed his post and made the drive against criminality, notably against the illegal drug trade, his priority.
Beyond the debate on the conduct of the government’s war on illegal drugs and extra-judicial killings, however, is the legitimate demand by the parents of the victims for justice. If Maxi’s killer lives, he needs to be punished to the full extent of the law. In Ronli’s case, his killers are still at large and there’s the added problem that some policemen may be coddling them, which is condemnable.