Philippine journalist shot dead

Gunmen killed a Philippine journalist and slightly wounded one of his daughters, whose sister pretended to be dead and escaped unharmed, police said Tuesday.

Two gunmen on a motorcycle ambushed Bert Sison, 60, as he drove home late Monday with two of his daughters in Sariaya, a township 62 miles southeast of Manila, Senior Police Officer Rodolfo Lindog said.

Sison was shot several times and died at the scene, Lindog said.

He is the third journalist to be killed in the Philippines this year and the 58th since President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo came to office in 2001, the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines said in a statement condemning the attack.

Sison was a correspondent of the weekly "Regional Bulletin" published in Quezon province. He also hosted a weekly radio music program, according to Delfin Mallari, an NUJP officer based in the province.

Lindog said the assailants shot Sison's 30-year-old daughter, Liwayway Andaya, in the hand as she fled, slightly wounding her. Sison's other daughter, 24-year-old Amirah Sison, escaped unscathed by pretending to be dead, Lindog added.

The two daughters are also correspondents of the "Regional Bulletin," which Mallari said reports mostly crime stories and sometimes carries articles critical of politicians.

The brazenness of the deadly attack "merely proves the culture of impunity nurtured by government's continued inaction towards the murders of journalist," the NUJP said.

"While we do not see the murders of and attacks on our colleagues as part of any official policy, we maintain that the official apathy that allows so many of these incidents to remain unsolved, and the repeated attempts to muzzle a press that refuses to surrender its liberties, is tantamount to a stamp of approval," NUJP said in a statement.