REPORTING on local radio can be a deadly business in the Philippines. More journalists from this media are killed here than anywhere else in the world.

This year's first casualty was 38-year-old Badroddin Abbas, who hosted a talk-radio programme in the southern city of Cotabato, an edgy place at the best of times. He was shot in the head by gunmen who waylaid his car on Wednesday night.

In the previous month, two radio journalists, Leo Mila, 35, and Arecio Padrigao, 52, were gunned down in separate killings in other parts of the country. Mr Padrigao was reportedly shot while dropping his seven-year-old daughter off at school.

Eight journalists were killed in the Philippines last year. According to the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines, Mr Abbas was the 63rd journalist killed since President Gloria Arroyo came to power in 2001. That 's just over half the total number of slain journalists since the fall of the Marcos regime in 1986.

International journalists' groups have long ranked the Philippines as one of the most dangerous countries for members of the media after Iraq.

But the danger here is in a different line of fire: Many of the slain Filipino journalists were radio broadcasters from small provincial towns, who had fatally tangled with local politicians, corrupt officials or crime bosses.

While the Philippines has a free and vibrant media, it is among a group of nations that include Pakistan, Mexico, Columbia where journalists become targets if they cross powerful interests.

In Manila and other big cities, lawyers are generally used to silence annoying reporters with the threat of writs. But in the provinces, where local strongmen run their own armed groups and the law has less reach, hired guns are preferred if warnings don't work.

"You can say what you like about President Arroyo and the government, but not local politicians," says veteran journalist Joel Torres. "In the provinces, everything is taken much more personally."

Not surprisingly, some journalists carry guns here.

With elections looming in 2010, and political violence traditionally escalates over these periods, media-watch organisations fear attacks on journalists will escalate.

Some blame the high death toll during President Arroyo's watch on the same "climate of impunity" in which large numbers of left-wing activists have been murdered. There have been accusations that elements in the military were involved.

The death toll in those killings has fallen sharply over the past year. A clamour of protests from foreign governments and rights groups galvanised the administration into probing the attacks on activists with the above-ground left.

Over the years, Filipino journalists have paid with their lives for exposing illegal logging, smuggling and town-hall corruption. The gunman, usually on a motorbike, is rarely unexpected; most victims get death threats and warnings to stop.

Many of the slain Filipino radio broadcasters - including Mr Abbas, according to reports - were "block timers," commentators who buy air time from radio stations. Their shows are often brash and confrontational. As local newspaper editorials wearily point out after every practically every murder, that's no justification for having them killed.

Shortly after Mr Mila's murder, I asked one of his colleagues at a sister station why he had ignored death threats, reportedly for exposing corruption in the town of San Roque. "He did it out of principle," she replied. "I do commentaries, but you have to be careful."

There have only been a handfull of successful convictions in the murders of journalists. The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists says the Philippines and Russia have particulalry poor records in solving these killings.

Witnesses are often too frightened to testify, fearing retribution from the hidden hands behind the murders (a major obstacle, too, in prosecuting members of drug syndicates).

But there is a sense among some local journalists that more is now being done to investigate these unsolved murders, which get noticed overseas.

In 2007, President Arroyo set up Task Force 211, an agency under the Department of Justice. to investigate and prosecute cases involving extra-judicial killings, including those of journalists. The latest data, from this month, show 263 cases have been investigated, with 37 going to trial. The rest had either been dismissed, gone cold, are under investigation or the accused, as in 70 cases, are still at large.

There is no specific breakdown for journalists. But the progress of each case can be tracked on Task Force 211's website (www.taskforce211.com.ph). It names the victim and the respondent/accused as well as the current status of each case.

Still, more high-profile convictions of those ordering the killings - and not just the hired gunmen - are sorely needed.