Threats to press freedom around the world

REPORTERS Sans Frontieres (RSF) – Reporters without Borders – is an international organization, a consultant of the United Nations, that promotes and defends freedom of the press. It draws its inspiration from Article 19 of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights saying that everyone has “the right to freedom of opinion and expression.”

RSF issues an annual report which, this year, accused Russia, China, and President Donald Trump of the United States (US) of leading a charge against press freedom, whipping up hostility against journalists. RSF accused Russia’s President Vladimir Putin of “stifling independent voices at home” and China’s President Xi Jinping of raising “censorship and surveillance to unprecedented levels” with the “massive use of new technology.”

RSF did not criticize the US government itself – only President Trump, for his personal attacks on reporters and repeatedly accusing the American media, notably the New York Times, of “fake news.” Other world leaders which openly displayed aversion to media, RSF said, were India’s President Narendra Modi and the Philippines’ President Duterte.

In its World Press Freedom Index for 2018, the RSF ranked Philippines 133rd among 180 countries, six notches below last year’s 127th ranking. It said three media men were killed last year – a Surigao del Sur radio broadcaster, a Batangas tabloid columnist, and a Masbate radio commentator. It also cited action taken by some government agencies against an online network, a TV station, and a broadsheet. The 2017 ranking was an improvement over 2016 when the Philippines was No. 138.

The US and the Philippines are the only countries in the world whose constitutions specifically declare freedom of the press as a basic human right. But the RSF assesses actual threats to press freedom, particularly killings of journalists. It appears that it has not forgotten President Duterte’s words in 2016 when he told newsmen: “Just because you’re a journalist, you are not exempted from assassination. If you’re a son of a bitch, freedom of expression cannot help you if you have done something wrong.”

It was the President’s usual blunt way of speaking and there has been no actual action taken against any journalist. But because of it, the RSF has now connected President Duterte to President Trump of the US, Putin of Russia, and Xi of China in its assessment of threats to press freedom around the world.

In any case, the RSF ranks the Philippines a poor No. 133 among the nations of the world on press freedom – all because of three killings in the provinces this year and President Duterte’s words in 2016. Such ranking does not do justice to the Philippines but we recognize it as the perception of the RSF. We just have to keep up our own tradition of freedom of expression, with its solid legal and constitutional basis, which we carry on to this day in both the traditional media and in the rising on-line and social media.