AN Iloilo City radio host was attacked by four masked men in hoodie jackets after his radio show on Friday.

Radio host Flo Hervias was coming from his radio program “Banwa Binag-binaga” on radio station DYRI 774 by Radio Mindanao Network Iloilo on Friday morning when the four men beat him up as soon as he left his radio station.

“Hervias had just exited the building where the radio station is located when the men who were wearing hoodies stopped him before beating him up,” the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP) chapter in Iloilo wrote in a Facebook statement on Friday. “They were apparently waiting for the broadcaster to come down from the building and pretended to be garbage collectors.”

Hervias had suffered injuries to his mouth and near the eyes.

The attack on Hervias came four days after the shooting death of radio commentator Percy Lapid in Las Piñas City on Monday night.

According to the NUJP, this attack on Hervias showed the state of media workers in the Philippines and it was becoming common that they were being attacked.

“The daylight attack against Hervias, right in front of the radio station, shows how assaults against Filipino media workers have become more brazen,” the statement by the NUJP-Iloilo wrote. “We call on the Philippine National Police to act on its assurance of protecting journalists and upholding the freedom of the press by swiftly and decisively apprehending the assailants and all others involved and filing the appropriate charges.”

They had also called on their colleagues to “stand together” in defending press freedom and to stand by their duties by holding those in authority into account.