Philippines ranked 140th in Press Freedom Index

The Philippines is up 16 places in the 2011 Press Freedom Index released by Reporters sans Frontières (Reporters Without Borders, RSF). RSF is an international non-government organization based in France which promotes freedom of information and press freedom.

Though the country improved its ranking from 156th place in 2010, the RSF said that “In the Philippines (140th), which rose again in the index after falling in 2010 as a result of the massacre of 32 journalists in Ampatuan in November 2009, paramilitary groups and private militias continued to attack media workers. The judicial investigation into the Ampatuan massacre made it clear that the response of the authorities was seriously inadequate.”

From its 122nd place in 2009, the country dropped to 156th after the 23 November 2009 Ampatuan Massacre in which 58 people were killed, including 32 journalists and media workers in Ampatuan town, Maguindanao.

The index noted that “ the same trio of countries, Eritrea, Turkmenistan and North Korea, absolute dictatorships that permit no civil liberties, again occupy the last three places in the index” and “the same group of countries at its head, countries such as Finland, Norway and Netherlands that respect basic freedoms.”

Timor-Leste got the highest ranking among the eleven Southeast Asian countries at 87th place (together with Kosovo and Zambia). The Philippines got the 7th highest ranking among the Southeast Asian countries. Vietnam was the lowest ranking Southeast Asian country at 171st, with RSF noting that Vietnam “appeared to follow China’s repressive lead and fell seven places. Politically committed journalists and pro-democracy bloggers were harassed by the authorities while the courts continued to invoke state security to hand out prison sentences ranging from two to seven years.”

The 2011 Press Freedom Index contains the results of RSF’s annual survey on the state of press freedom in all five continents and in more than 170 countries. The 2011 index looked into press freedom violations from 1 December 2010 to 30 November 2011. (The full report is in the RSF website [http://en.rsf.org/].)

Earlier in June 2011, the New York-based press freedom advocacy group Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) ranked the Philippines as third in list of 13 countries where impunity for the killers of journalists thrives, the same rank the country received in 2010. (http://cpj.org/reports/2011/06/2011-impunity-index-getting-away-murder.php).

One hundred twenty five out of the 185 cases of journalists/media practitioners killed in the Philippines since 1986 are work-related, according to the Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility database.