AsiaPundit has had the pleasure of working alongside many Filipino journalists and has almost always been impressed, which makes the following news more depressing. AP suspects that part of the reason the death toll among reporters in the Philippines is so high is because they do their jobs so well.:

The Philippines was second only to Iraq as the most dangerous place for journalists in 2005, two international media watchdogs, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and the Paris-based Reporters Sans Frontieres (RSF), said today.

Worldwide, last year was a deadly one for journalists with 47 killed, most of them deliberately targeted because of their work, according to CPJ. “Kidnappers in Iraq, political assassins in Beirut and hit men in the Philippines made murder the leading cause of work-related deaths among journalists worldwide in 2005,” the US-based watchdog said. (Read the CPJ report here.) The killers, CPJ added, targeted journalists “to silence them for their criticism or to punish them for their work.”

RSF, however, had a higher casualty count, with 63 journalists killed and 1,300 others physically attacked or receiving threats. It said last year’s total was the highest since 1995. It reported six journalists killed in the Philippines last year because of their work, while several others were murdered for unknown reasons. “Their enemies were no longer armed groups but politicians, businessmen and drug-traffickers ready to silence journalists who exposed their crimes,” said the RSF report.

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