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Gunmen shot dead a journalist and wounded his daughter in the third
killing of a media worker in the Philippines this year, a local
journalists’ group said Tuesday.
The attack southeast of Manila was apparently
encouraged by the government’s failure to crack down on assailants
of reporters, the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP)
said in a statement.
Bert Sison, a reporter for the weekly Regional
Bulletin newspaper and a radio host, was driving his two daughters
home in Sariaya town late Monday when two men on a motorcycle
overtook them and one fired at them, the NUJP said.
Sison received nine fatal gunshot wounds while
his 30-year-old daughter Liwayway, who also works for the same
paper, was wounded in the arm.
“We maintain that the official apathy that
allows so many of these incidents to remain unsolved is tantamount
to a stamp of approval,” the NUJP said.
Sison was the third journalist to be murdered
this year and the 58th since President Gloria Arroyo came to power
in 2001, it said.
The New York-based Committee to Protect
Journalists, as well as the French group Reporters Without Borders
branded the Philippines as the second most dangerous place for
working journalists outside of Iraq.
Three journalists were killed in the Philippines
last year, while 12 were killed in 2006.
-- AFP
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