Alex Balcoba, a news and crime reporter for the People’s Brigada tabloid, was fatally shot in the head by an unknown assailant while speaking on his mobile phone outside of a watch repair shop owned by his family in the Quiapo district of the capital Manila on May 26, 2016. The assailant fled on a motorcycle. Fellow journalists took Balcoba to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead. The motive for the shooting remains unclear.