Radio broadcaster Percival Mabasa, better known as Percy Lapid, was shot dead on Monday night at

Talon Dos, Las Piñas, Philippines.

He was the host of the online broadcast program “Percy Lapid Fire” at DWBL 1242 and was known to be critical of previous and the present administration, touching on topics such as red-tagging and supposed extrajudicial killings.

According to his family, he had received a lot of death threats before he was killed. He was on his way home to do an online broadcast when he was gunned down by two unknown assailants.

According to the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP), Lapid was the second journalist killed during the term of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. The first was radio broadcaster Rey Blanco, who was stabbed to death in Negros Oriental last month.

NUJP Secretary General Ronalyn Olea said Lapid was the first in recent years to be killed in Metro Manila. He was also the 196th journalist killed in the country since 1986, the year democracy was restored after the ouster of dictator Ferdinand E. Marcos, the father of the current president.

In an October 2021 report, the New-York based Committee to Protect Journalists ranked the Philippines seventh on a global impunity index, with 13 murders still unsolved.