(Reuters) – Gunmen on a motorcycle shot dead a journalist on his way home in the northern Philippines, the second reporter murdered in the country this week, police said on Wednesday.
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Joselito Agustin, 37, a radio reporter in Laoag City in northern Ilocos Norte province, was shot four times early on Wednesday, said Leonardo Espina, national police spokesman.
“We’re still in the process of investigating the motive for the killing,” Espina told reporters, adding authorities want to know whether the crime was work-related.
The Philippines was the deadliest country for journalists in the world in 2009, accounting for 37 of 132 journalists and support staff that were killed or died while working around the world, the International News Safety Institute (INSI) has said.
The journalist deaths last year included at least 30 killed in a massacre of 57 people in southern Maguindanao province in what was the country’s worst election-related violence.
(Reporting by Manny Mogato; Editing by Rosemarie Francisco)