EDITORIAL - Keeping power in check

Thanks to advances in technology, disseminating information has become much easier. This ease, however, is matched by the ease in curtailing the flow of information and the zeal by which certain government officials muzzle mass media.

A society cannot be free without a free press. In the Philippines’ dysfunctional democracy, press freedom has always faced various types of threats, from business and political pressures to outright threats to the personal safety of journalists. The collapse of the Marcos dictatorship in 1986 did not put an end to the murder of journalists, with the worst attack being perpetrated by a local warlord clan against 32 media workers in November 2009 in Maguindanao.

On the eve of the 25th celebration of World Press Freedom Day, whose theme is “keeping power in check: media, justice and the rule of law,” dyGB FM radio broadcaster Edmund Sestoso died a day after being gunned down in Dumaguete, Negros Occidental. As in the many other fatal attacks on journalists in this country, the gunmen, who were on motorcycles, remain unidentified.

The failure to apprehend killers of journalists has placed the Philippines among the five worst countries in terms of impunity in media murders, and one of the most dangerous for members of the press.

Apart from murders, Philippine journalists must contend with expensive litigation when slapped with libel suits, political pressure on the business side of mass media, tapped phones, death threats, and the latest forms of harassment through bullying by trolls. The proliferation of fake news is also posing serious challenges to journalism.

President Duterte, like his predecessors, has no love lost for journalists, although he has been more pugnacious in showing his displeasure, with certain media organizations specifically targeted and barred from news coverage. He has been particularly touchy about media criticism of his bloody war against illegal drugs.

In the latest World Press Freedom Index released recently by watchdog Reporters Without Borders, the Philippines fell by six notches to 133rd place out of 180 countries, with the President’s attacks on the press among the main factors cited for the slide. RSF noted that with four journalists murdered last year, the Philippines was Asia’s deadliest country for media workers in 2017.

Press freedom is under attack not only in the Philippines but even in Europe and the United States. In Afghanistan, terrorists specifically targeted journalists for a suicide bombing this week, killing nine, with another slain in a separate attack. But the Philippine press faces some of the toughest challenges, with no respite in sight.