Gunmen on motorcycle kill Philippine journalist
MANILA, July 1 (Reuters) - Two gunmen on a motorcycle shot dead a Philippine radio commentator in a southern town, the second journalist killed this year in the Southeast Asian nation, police said on Tuesday.
The Philippines is one of the most dangerous places in the world to work as a journalist. Since President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo came to power in 2001, 57 reporters have been killed.
Robert "Bert" Sison was driving home with his two daughters on Monday evening when two men on a motorcycle shot him a dozen times in Sariaya town, about 100 km (60 miles) southeast of Manila, said Fidel Posadas, police chief in Quezon province.
"Sison was killed on the spot from nine bullet wounds, shielding one of his daughters," Posadas said, adding the other daughter seated behind the driver's seat was hit in the arm and was rushed to a nearby hospital.
Sison, 60, was a music programme host and a commentator for a local radio station and was a columnist for a community newspaper in Lucena City.
Investigative stories about drug trafficking, gambling and other illegal activities in the Philippines often put reporters' lives at risk.
Corruption in the media, with underpaid journalists sometimes taking bribes to report stories, also places reporters in danger from disgruntled paymasters or their rivals.
Under fire for its failure to protect hundreds of journalists and left-wing activists killed over the past seven years, the government has vowed to track down killers of reporters but there have been few convictions.
In April, the New York-based journalism watchdog Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) ranked the Philippines at sixth in its index of the world's most dangerous countries for the press. (Reporting by Manny Mogato; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan and Alex Richardson)
