Veteran print and radio journalist Juan Balagtas does not leave his home in the volatile southern Philippine city of Zamboanga without a loaded .45 calibre handgun.
He drives around in a heavily tinted van and pays a bodyguard to watch his back as he heads to the local radio station, where his popular program attacking corrupt politicians and Islamic militants airs daily.
"I carry a .45 calibre pistol if I go out. It's difficult to move around when you know you have enemies," said Balagtas - not his real name - who also writes for a Manila-based broadsheet.
If he revealed his real name, he said, "I may not live tomorrow."
Zamboanga is a hotbed of al Qaeda linked Islamic militants as well as political warlords who have private armies that are often better armed than the police and the military.
A rising tide of killings has targeted journalists.
Forty-five broadcast journalists have been gunned down in the Philippines since democracy was restored after the fall of dictator Ferdinand Marcos in 1986.
Six reporters have been killed so far this year. The latest was broadcaster Fernando Consignado, whose body was found Thursday with a bullet wound to the head in his home south of Manila.
Just days earlier, another radio journalist Jonathan Abayon, was shot in the head by a former soldier following a heated argument in the southern city of General Santos.
Tabloid reporter and radio correspondent Arnel Manalo was killed by gunmen riding a motorcycle earlier this month, as was crusading radio commentator Rogelio Mariano on July 31.
Two other journalists were killed in February and in June.
Police are investigating whether the killings were all work-related and said they would ease restrictions on gun permits for journalists.
The move has triggered a heated debate in a country where a proliferation of unlicensed firearms is blamed for rising crime.
Balagtas said only bona fide members of the press whose lives were in danger should be allowed to arm themselves.
"You don't really have to own a firearm if you're not under threat and you know you didn't do anything wrong," he said. Three years ago, a colleague was gunned down outside his home after allegedly angering a politician.
Balagtas himself had to lie low for months after receiving threats and being followed by a man the police had identified as a suspect in his friend's murder.
"I grew a beard. Changed my appearance. I knew they were after me," Balagtas said. "I carried my pistol around, because I was also receiving threats I would be killed."
The suspect in his friend's killing remains at large, with the family failing to pursue the case in court after a witness was also killed.
Jaime Laude, a newspaper journalist covering the police and military beats in Manila, also owns a handgun. Unlike other journalists however, he has undergone rigid training in handling firearms.
"In this trade, especially when you cover the police and political beats, you are exposed to threats to your life. You do your work and sometimes people get hurt," Laude said.
However, he said the responsibility of maintaining peace and order lay with the police.
"If you arm all the journalists, you might as well arm all civilians and disband the police and the military," Laude said.
Guns will not ensure safety against a "determined killer" and in some cases corrupt police officers themselves, Laude said.
The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) was critical of the development in the Philippines.
"It is a sad reflection on law enforcement when the best defence journalists are offered is advice to carry a weapon," CPJ's Asia co-ordinator Abi Wright told AFP.
"The problem with impunity remains paramount in the Philippines. We call on authorities to thoroughly investigate these deadly attacks and bring the guilty parties to justice."
"That is the best defence for freedom of the press," she said.
Some journalists themselves were engaged in nefarious activities, University of the Philippines journalism professor Luis Teodoro said. Many were not real journalists and others entered the trade "for no other purpose than to use the media for narrow, personal ends," he said.