General Santos city is located in the south of the Philippines. The volatile area was where 57 civilians who were killed during a Nov. 23 attack.
By Jim Gomez
The Associated Press
GENERAL SANTOS, Philippines (AP) — Kristia Subang wiped her father’s coffin with a cloth and recalled the last time she saw the veteran newspaperman, when he woke her with a surprise gift of a new set of shoes for school — the night before he and 29 colleagues were massacred on their final assignment.
Relatives of the journalists — among 57 civilians who were shot and hacked to death in a Nov. 23 attack on an election convoy in the southern Philippines — gathered for a wake on Sunday, Nov. 29, at a rundown funeral parlor. The white wooden coffins were all shut except for one, disfigured in a slaughter that used guns, machetes, and a backhoe.
The massacre highlighted the violent factionalism that plagues the volatile region — and the deadly risks journalists take in covering it. The powerful clan accused in the killings vowed it was innocent and said Sunday it would wage a legal battle to disprove the allegations. Read the full story
