Gerardo Valeriano Ortega DVM (August 28, 1963 – January 24, 2011), better known simply as "Doc Gerry" or "Ka Gerry,"[1] was a Filipino journalist, veterinarian, politician, environmental activist,[2][3] and community organizer[4] best known for his work to promote crocodile farming in the Philippines[5] and for his advocacy against mining on the island of Palawan.
[1] Gerry Ortega earned his Doctor of Veterinary Medicine degree from the Gregorio Araneta University Foundation near Manila.
The eldest, Mika Ortega, worked as an Information, education, and communication officer of ABS-CBN Foundation's Kapit Bisig para sa Ilog Pasig.
[7] At the time, many thought the Crocodile Farm project, which was run by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, and funded by the Japan International Cooperation Agency, would never succeed.
Ortega and his team at the CFI also received considerable media attention over catching the largest saltwater crocodile in the country.
[5] Ortega resigned from his post at Crocodile Farm in time to run for a position in the Provincial Board of Palawan during the elections of 2001.
[16] It was during this time that Ortega is said to have first gained access to "information and documents about widespread corruption in the provincial government of Palawan."
[16] Uncertain about their future career, given the political and economic situation in the Philippines, he and his wife Patty briefly considered taking a job abroad.
By late 2009, Ortega had begun regularly receiving death threats because of the hard-hitting nature of his radio programs, at one point prompting the family to get a bodyguard for him.
[14] Puerto Princesa City Former Mayor Edward Hagedorn revealed that Ortega was especially concerned when at one point the threats extended to his daughters.
[16] Ortega was getting ready to travel to Manila for the launching of the Ten Million Signatures Campaign for the banning of mining operations in the province of Palawan when he was assassinated.
[18] Recamata originally claimed that the motivation for the killing was simply robbery, but numerous parties including the Committee to Protect Journalists, the Asian Human Rights Commission, Puerto Princesa Mayor Edward Hagedorn, and ABS CBN's Bantay Kalikasan, through its head Gina Lopez, pointed out that this was unlikely, given the way the murder was conducted, the fact that Ortega did not present himself as someone likely to be worth robbing.
[19] A second suspect, Percival Lecias, was invited for questioning by the Puerto Princesa office of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) on January 25, 2011.
Edrad also implicated former Coron, Palawan Mayor Mario T. Reyes Jr., and Arturo Regalado, the man who bought the gun from Atty.
In a resolution dated June 8, 2011, a panel of prosecutors from the Philippines' Department of Justice (DOJ) dismissed criminal charges filed against former Marinduque Governor Jose Antonio N. Carrion, former Palawan Gov.
[18][21] The same resolution said that there was probable cause to charge Rodolfo Edrad Jr., Armando Noel, Dennis Aranas, and Arwin Arandia with murder.
"[22] On March 13, 2012, the Department of Justice, after a review by a second panel, reversed its former decision of dismissing the cases against Governor Joel Reyes, Mayor Mario Reyes, Romeo Seratubias, Arturo Regalado, and Percival Lecias and ordered the filing of murder charges against them on the death of Ortega after the reviewing the motion for reconsideration filed by Ortega's wife the previous year and taking into account the new evidences presented there.
In October 2014, a third ruling by the CA affirmed the ability of DOJ Justice Secretary Leila de Lima "to review, revise, reverse, or modify the resolutions of her prosecutors who conducted preliminary investigations."
Additionally, the CA rejected a motion by the Reyes brothers to bar de Lima from the case owing to comments made to the press that they believed demonstrated a bias against them.
According to a petition drive on Change.org we "decry the de facto inaction and seeming apathy of authorities in resolving the Ortega case and all media killings in the country".
The unidentified man was presented by former Solicitor General Francisco Chavez and Sandra Cam of the Whistleblowers Association of the Philippine.
In early September 2015 a tip by email informed officials the pair was residing in a villa in a resort town on Phuket Island, Thailand.
On September 28, 2015, the DOJ announced a team of lawyers was investigating the implications of reviewing and/or reversing the findings by the first panel that was in favor of not prosecuting the Reyes brothers.
Philippine Senator Antonio Trillanes IV publicly named and claimed two judges on the Court of Appeals were paid off by the Binay family.
At the Reyeses trial on March 21, 2016, bodyguard Rodolfo Edrad Jr. testified that he hired the killers, and identified the brothers as the masterminds.
In August 2017, the anti-graft court Sandiganbayan convicted Joel Reyes with one count of graft and sentenced him to 6 to 8 years in prison over an illegal small-scale mining permit in Puerto Princesa in 2006.
[26] On January 29, 2018, the Sandiganbayan ordered the arrest of Joel Reyes in connection with his conviction for the anomalous renewal of small-scale mining permits.
[29] Inspired by plans originally conceived by Ortega, local media units in Palawan, through the Alyansa ng Panlalawigang Mamamahayag Inc. (APAMAI) and the local chapter of the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP), launched a savings and loan fund project for their members on July 24, 2011.