Philippine mayor killed a day after another was gunned down

Another Philippine mayor was shot and killed today by an unidentified man in a road attack a day after a city mayor was gunned down in brazen back-to-back killings that prompted an opposition senator to call the country the "murder capital of Asia".

Mayor Ferdinand Bote of northern General Tinio town was leaving a government compound on board an SUV in northern Nueva Ecija province when a motorcycle-riding man shot him repeatedly with a pistol. The gunman escaped, police said.

Yesterday, Mayor Antonio Halili was shot in the heart and killed while singing the national anthem with hundreds of employees in a flag-raising ceremony in his city of Tanauan, south of Manila.

Videos taken by witnesses of the moment when an apparent single rifle shot felled the 72-year-old mayor and sparked chaos have gone viral online and sparked new alarm.

Opposition Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV blamed the killings on a "culture of violence" under President Rodrigo Duterte, whom he has criticized for a brutal anti-drug crackdown that has left thousands of mostly poor suspects dead in the last two years.

The Roman Catholic church has also raised alarm over the killings of three priests in recent months, including one who was shot in an altar while preparing to celebrate Mass in a northern village last month. At least four suspects are in police custody.

"No one is safe now," Trillanes said in a statement. "For someone who promised to restore peace and order in our country during the campaign, it is ironic for a lot of people that Duterte has actually turned the Philippines into the murder capital of Asia."