`Yet this accomplishment of sorts has lost shine with the murder less than a week ago of an 89-year-old former publisher and columnist…’
WORLD Press Freedom day last Saturday was bittersweet for the Philippine news media. The day before, Reporters sans frontières (Reporters Without Borders) updated its Press Freedom Index, which showed our press moving up by 18 notches.
Our latest country report, as of January 2025, showed no killings, and only one journalist in detention, moving us to 116th out of 180 countries.
Leading the index are Norway, Estonia and The Netherlands, while Eritrea, North Korea and China find themselves at the bottom.
Asia’s freest press, once our (empty?) boast, is actually in Taiwan, at No. 24. Timor-Leste, which was 10th in 2023, is 39th this year. Korea and Japan are 62nd and 70th, respectively.
What we are, in fact, is Southeast Asia’s third freest, behind Thailand (85th) and Malaysia (88th). Singapore and Indonesia, which were ahead of us last year, are now slightly behind at 123rd and 127th, respectively.
Our zero-death distinction is quite significant considering that the Committee to Protect Journalists called 2024 the “deadliest” for journalists in its history. At least 124 journalists were killed, it said, nearly two-thirds of them Palestinians.
Yet this accomplishment of sorts has lost shine with the murder less than a week ago of an 89-year-old former publisher and columnist who was gunned down in his home in Kalibo, Aklan. As of this writing police, have not identified any suspects, not even a person of interest in the shooting of Juan “Johnny” Dayang, chairman emeritus of the Publishers Association of the Philippines Inc. (PAPI) and former president of the National Press Club. The Committee to Protect Journalists will not call a killing “murder” without credible evidence that the victim was targeted in relation to his work. Regardless, a journalist has once again fallen to violence.
The lone Filipino journalist in detention is Frenchie Mae Cumpio, who was a 21-year-old radio host in Tacloban when she was arrested on charges of illegal possession of firearms and terrorism financing, after she reported on alleged abuses by the police and military in Region VIII. RSF calls the charges “spurious.” Last March, Cumpio, now 26, concluded her testimony in a trial that began only last year after four years of detention. Her trial has not received widespread news coverage by local media.
We are also a week away from elections. We will look out for reports of threats of violence or actual violence against people covering the news or commenting on events.
While 18 places might seem a significant jump in the world ranking, perhaps we should defer any premature celebration until after we find ourselves in the upper half of the press-freedom index. Certainly that will mean solving Dayang’s murder, ending in a credible manner Cumpio’s trial, not using the Anti-Terrorism Act (Republic Act No. 11479) as a weapon to muffle criticism from the media, and finally decriminalizing libel and cyberlibel.
In other press-freedom indicators, the Philippines is ninth in the 2024 CPJ Global Impunity Index, while Freedom House says the Internet in our country is “partly free.”
