Today (May 3, 2019), World Freedom Day, we would like to share with you a summary report and data graphics on the state of Philippine media, with reports on attacks and threats recorded from June 30, 2016 to April30, 2019 under the Duterte Administration.
This is the third semestral report produced by the “Freedom for Media, Freedom for All Network” that is composed of the Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility (CMFR), National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP), Philippine Press Institute (PPI), MindaNews, and Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ).
We shared copies of our latest report at a press briefing we held today in Quezon City.
Infographics by the Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility (CMFR), with research by the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP).
From our second report (June 30, 2016 to Nov. 23, 2018), to this latest report, our monitoring of cases of attacks and threats on the Philippine media shows:
* An increase in the number of cases of “Killings, Attacks, and Threats” from 99 cases/incident to 128 cases/incidents, across media platforms across the nation. in the last six months;
* A significant increase — from six to 16 cases — in the number of incidents of intimidation, including “red-tagging,” visits by police teams to the offices of certain media agencies, and the exposure of independent media organizations and their officers and staff in the so-called “associational matrix” of an “oust-Duterte plot”;
* A significant increase in the number of threats and harassment of online news organizations from 30 to 50.
* A significant increase — from 10 to 16 cases — in the number of DDoS attacks on alternative media sites; and
* An unchanged number of 12 journalists killed from June 30, 2016 to October 30, 2018, under the Duterte administration.
By gender/entity, the attacks had targeted 66 males and 33 females, and 29 media organizations.
By medium, of the 128 cases/incidents of attacks and threats on the press, online has shot to top spot with 50 cases, followed by radio with 36, and print with 25, television with 13, multimedia with 3, and photojournalism, 1.
Infographics by the Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility (CMFR), with research by the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP).
By region of the country, from 41 cases/incidents of attacks and threats in November 2019, media agencies in the National Capital Region or Metro Manila recorded 63 cases by April 30, 2019. Metro Manila’s media has retained this dubious record as No. 1, by number of cases of attacks and threats, since 2014.
By island group, the 128 total cases include 89 cases recorded in Luzon, 26 in Mindanao, and 13 in the Visayas.
Infographics by the Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility (CMFR), with research by the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP).
By alleged perpetrator or suspect, nearly half or 60 of the cases involved state agents or public officials.
They include 16 local government officials and employees; 14 national government offices and officials; 11 officers of the Philippine National Police; seven officers of the Armed Forces of the Philippines; three officers of the Presidential Security Group; two cases each involving, ironically, an official of the Presidential Special Task Force on Media Killings (PTFOMS) and of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency; and one case involving the director of the Philippine Information Agency.
