Radio broadcaster shot dead in south Philippines

Gunmen fatally shot a radio broadcaster as he drove his car with his wife and son in what an advocacy group said Friday was the 150th journalist slain in the Philippines since democracy was restored in 1986.

Police said they did not yet know the motive for the attack late Thursday in southern General Santos city on Christoper Guarin, 42, a broadcast journalist on Radio Mindanao Network and a publisher of a small local tabloid.

Guarin managed to flee his vehicle when gunmen on a motorcycle opened fire, but the assailants chased him down and shot him repeatedly at close range before escaping, regional police chief Benjardi Matele said.

His wife, who was slightly injured in the attack, told a radio interview that her husband had received death threats.

Guarin's 12-year-old son was not injured but was traumatized, said Supt. Resty Damaso, a regional police spokesman.

Police planned to question Guarin's wife on the nature of the death threats against him, Damaso said.

The National Union of Journalists of the Philippines said Guarin's death was the 150th slaying of a journalist since 1986, and the Brussels-based International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) condemned killing.

The IFJ called on President Benigno Aquino III to honor his pre-election commitment to defend press freedom in the Philippines by seeing that all media workers' murders are investigated and punished quickly.

Aquino's spokesman Edwin Lacierda also condemned the killing. He said police have identified leads that will hopefully lead to apprehension of the suspects.