AFP

MANILA

A RADIO broadcaster was shot dead in the Philippines on Tuesday, police said, the fourth journalist slain this year in a country deemed by rights monitors as one of the most dangerous for the media.

Gunmen attacked Nestor Libaton, 45, an anchor for church-run DXHM radio in the southern city of Mati, while he was riding a motorcycle on a local highway, regional police commander Chief Superintendent Jaime Morante said.

Police said it was too early to determine the motive of the attack.

But Nestor Burgos, chairman of the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines, told that Libaton’s colleagues said he may have been killed because of his work, although details were not immediately available.

His co-anchor, Nella Duallo, said Libaton had “no known enemies. He was a good guy, a friendly person and a hardworking man”.

Libaton, who was married and had four children, was the fourth journalist murdered in the Philippines this year, and the 153rd media fatality since Philippine democracy was restored in 1986 from martial rule, Burgos said.