A Singaporean businessman was gunned down on Monday at a popular resort town in Batangas province, south of the Philippine capital Manila.

Mr Chan Kim Tay, 66, had just left his grocery shop at a public market in Lian town and was heading home at around 6pm on Monday when someone walked up to him and shot him in the head, Sergeant Arthur Rosales, the case officer, told The Straits Times.

Lian is about three hours south of Manila by car.

Mr Chan was taken to a hospital in nearby Nasugbu town, where he was pronounced dead on arrival.

Sgt Rosales said police are checking security cameras near where Mr Chan was killed for clues as to the shooter’s identity.

He added that investigators are looking into a couple of leads, including the likelihood that a domestic dispute might have led to Mr Chan’s killing, and that the Singaporean might have been killed by a hired gunman.

Mr Chan had been in the Philippines for about 30 years. He was married to Mrs Marife Chan, 49, a Filipino. Their three children are 28, 17 and seven years old.

Sgt Rosales said Mrs Chan told investigators her husband did not have any enemies nor had he quarrelled with anyone.

Mr Chan kept mostly to himself as he never learnt to speak Tagalog, the local language, according to Sgt Rosales, citing witnesses.

The businessman was not the first Singaporean to have been killed this way while living in the Philippines.

In August 2015, Mr Stanley Jang, 36, who managed a computer company, was shot in the face by two men while he was working inside his cubicle in Paranaque city, just south of Manila.

His widow told police Mr Jang, who had been in the Philippines for about 10 years, had been receiving death threats over a business dispute before he was killed.