Jess Malabanan, a correspondent of Manila Standard, was shot dead while watching television inside their store in Calbayog, Western Samar Wednesday evening, police said Thursday.

''One of the suspects appeared outside said store and suddenly

shot the victim once with the use of undetermined caliber of firearm,'' an initial police report said.

The suspect alighted a motorcycle as a back rider. They fled towards San Isidro, Northern Samar, said police.

Malabanan was brought by his family to the St. Camilius Hospital in Calbayog City where a doctor declared him dead on arrival.

Malabanan, 58, was a Pampanga correspondent of Manila Standard and long time stringer for Reuters. His last story, said Manila Standard news editor Joyce Panares, was a Pampanga shootfest on December 3.

Elmer Cato, consul general of the Philippine Embassy in New York, said in his Facebook account Malabanan was ''part of a group of non-Kapampangan journalists who were reporting for several community newspapers that sprouted in Pampanga'' in the late 1980s. DMS