MANILA, April 8 (Reuters) - A gunman on a motorcycle shot dead a Philippine newspaper columnist in Manila on Monday night, the first journalist killed this year in the Southeast Asian nation, police said on Tuesday.

The Philippines is one of the most dangerous places in the world to work as a journalist. Since President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo came to power in 2001, 56 reporters have been killed.

Benefredo Acabal was walking close to a friend's house on Monday night when a man on a motorcycle shot him five times in the head and the body, police officer Lardy Ignacio said.

The local newspaper columnist died on the way to hospital.

"We're still trying to establish the motive for the killing," Ignacio said, adding it was premature to conclude the murder was work-related.

Investigative stories about drug trafficking, gambling and other illegal activities in the Philippines put reporters' lives at risk. Corruption in the media, with underpaid journalists sometimes taking bribes to report stories, also places reporters in danger from disgruntled paymasters or their rivals.

Under fire for its failure to protect reporters and hundreds of left-wing activists, lawyers and students killed over the past seven years, the government has vowed to track down killers of activists and journalists but there have been few convictions. (Reporting by Manny Mogato; editing by Carmel Crimmins and Michael Perry)

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