A freelance radio reporter was shot dead by unknown assailants in Mindanao in the southern Philippines on Wednesday, local media and Reuters reported.

Edwin Segues, who freelanced for several radio stations, was reportedly on his way to work when he was approached by two men on a motorcycle, who shot him three times before driving off.

Segues was also a local village official in Misamis Occidental province on the southern island of Mindanao.

The police say they have no motive for the killing.

The Philippines was the most deadly country for journalists in 2009, according to IPI’s Death Watch count.

In the course of last year, 38 journalists were killed because of their work – 32 of them in the infamous Maguindanao massacre in November 2009. In that incident, the journalists were part of a convoy accompanying a political candidate which was intercepted by over 100 gunmen at a roadside checkpoint in the town of Ampatuan, Mindanao Island. Police found the dead bodies of 57 people in shallow graves close to the checkpoint.