PRESS FREEDOM INDEX | Philippines drops nine places in global press freedom index

May 3, 2022 , 09:39 PM

By Clarist Zablan, News5 Digital

(May 3, 2022) – The Philippines dropped nine places in the global press freedom index this year, making it the 34th most restrictive country in the world for journalists, a media rights watchdog said on Tuesday in commemoration of the World Press Freedom Day.

In its 2022 report, France-based Reporters Without Borders (RSF) ranked the Philippines at 147th out of 180 in press freedom, noting that the nation’s press has been “extremely vibrant despite the government’s targeted attacks and constant harassment, since 2016, of journalists and media outlets that are too critical.”

The country ranked 138th in the index last year.

The Philippines scored the lowest in economic context, where it placed as the 12th most restrictive, as the entry of a third media giant owned by the Villar family, who are affiliated with President Rodrigo Duterte, is expected to challenge the duopoly between ABS-CBN and GMA.

“Mainstream media ownership has recently reached even greater levels of concentration than in the past – a development accompanied by closer ties between media owning families and political barons at regional and national levels,” RSF said in its report.

The country also performed poorly in maintaining the safety of journalists, as the setting up of the Presidential Task Force on Media Security in 2016 has been unable to address the cycles of violence that has made the nation among the world’s deadliest for journalists, the group said.

The Philippines performed better in sociocultural context compared to the rest of the index’s five indicators for press freedom, but RSF noted the reemergence of “red-tagging” or accusations of links to communist rebellion is putting journalists in the country at risk of arbitrary arrests or even summary execution.

Last year, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) ranked the Philippines as the seventh deadliest country in the world for journalists.

In a separate graphic, the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP) reported 23 cases of journalists’ killings since Duterte took office in 2016.

The group also tallied 56 cases of libel and cyberlibel, 32 incidents of “red-tagging,” and 20 distributed denial of service (DDOS) attacks against the press in 2022.

NUJP lamented the numerous attempts to discredit the media and the harassment faced by journalists for critical reporting, but is optimistic that the solidarity that the press won’t fall from these attacks as it forms solidarity with various civil society groups and communities who are advocating for press freedom.

“The National Union of Journalists of the Philippines marks World Press Freedom Day with the determination that the community of independent journalists will not rise or fall on the outcome of the May elections, that even the work we do will continue whoever is in power,” NUJP said in an earlier statement.

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