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PHL down 1 spot in 2019 World Press Freedom Index


The Philippines has dropped one spot in the 2019 World Press Freedom Index, placing 134th out of 180 countries at a time when political leaders' hostility against journalists has reportedly incited acts of violence, a media watchdog said Thursday.

The Paris-based Reporters Without Borders  (RSF) reported the Philippines scored 43.91 points, in between the United Arab Emirates and Morocco/Western Sahara, in an index that ranks Norway as first and Turkmenistan as 180th.

The report identified the string of legal cases and "online harassment campaigns" against news website Rappler and its CEO, Maria Ressa, as the "most emblematic case" showing supposed attacks against the press "by President Rodrigo Duterte's government" and their accompanying "coordinated cyber attacks."

Ressa and her company face separate cases for tax evasion, cyber libel, and violation of the Anti-Dummy Law, as well as allegations of illegal foreign ownership, charges which the veteran journalist and her team have repeatedly denied.

The watchdog called the prosecution against Rappler a "grotesque judicial harassment campaign."

It added that "pro-Duterte troll armies" did not only target Rappler, but also launched cyber attacks against alternative news websites and that of the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines "in order to block them."

Four alternative media groups have earlier filed a civil suit against two information technology firms they accused of having been the source of attacks that rendered their websites inaccessible a number of times in the past months.

Meanwhile, RSF said three Philippine journalists were killed this year, "most likely by agents working for local politicians, who can have reporters silenced with complete impunity."

It claimed the government has developed "several ways" to "pressure" journalists critical of President Rodrigo Duterte's war on drugs.

"In response to all these attacks, the Philippine independent media have rallied to the call to 'Hold the line,'" the report stated.

Last Tuesday, a mission by the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists announced it had found "increasing levels of intimidation and a shrinking space for the free press" in the Philippines.

Joel Egco, chief of the Presidential Task Force on Media Security, called the CPJ's findings "unfair." For his part, presidential spokesman Salvador Panelo claimed the Philippines had been removed from the RSF's list of deadliest countries for media workers last year.

In its 2018 report, however, the RSF described the Philippines as one of "the world’s deadliest countries for journalists and bloggers." —KBK, GMA News

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