THERE are no obvious signs of press censorship, as was the case during the time of the late strongman Ferdinand E. Marcos, the sitting president’s father, during Martial Law.
However, journalists who are supposed to report news end up being the news — killed in line of work, incidence of which peaked during the previous administrations.
And this is why, the Philippine press freedom situation remains a suspect insofar as UN Special Rapporteur Irene Khan is concerned. In her recent 18-page report, Khan said that freedom of expression is “under attack in multiple ways,” with various states, including the Philippines, increasingly weaponizing speech, criminalizing dissent and restricting access to digital spaces.
A leading media group has weighed in on Khan’s report—particularly as it cited the case of detained journalist Frenchie Mae Cumpio—and noted that Philippine laws have also been weaponized against rights advocates and press freedom, the Inquirer reported.
Khan, who will soon end her tenure as UN special rapporteur on freedom of opinion and expression, submitted her 18-page final report to the UN Human Rights Council last week.
She cited the case of Cumpio as she noted how the use of national security, counterterrorism, and similar laws to prosecute the legitimate exercise of freedom of expression has intensified.
STATE RED-TAGGING
“In the Philippines, ‘terrorism financing’ laws have been used against many journalists and human rights defenders, in one case dragging out legal proceedings for five years on dubious evidence while the journalist languished in pretrial detention and eventually received a disproportionately severe punishment,” Khan said without mentioning the Tacloban-based journalist by name, the Inquirer added.
Detained since their arrest on Feb. 7, 2020, Cumpio, a community journalist, and human rights advocate Marielle Domequil were convicted in January for financing terrorism and sentenced to imprisonment of 12 to 18 years.
The pair, however, have remained behind bars even while their case is under appeal after the Tacloban court denied their bail petition.
During an official visit to the Philippines in 2024 to evaluate the freedom of expression situation in the country, Khan was allowed to meet with Cumpio, Domequil and Alexander Philip Abinguna, another detained human rights advocate, at the Tacloban City Jail.
Khan said their cases underscored the human impact of “Red-tagging” and “a deficient process that provides limited avenues for recourse.”
“The three young adults, who were involved in community journalism, environmental reporting and humanitarian work, were Red-tagged for their civic activism before being arrested and detained for their alleged affiliation with the Communist Party of the Philippines and/or the New People’s Army,” she said in a 2025 report.
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
In a press statement following her final report, Khan also said freedom of expression is “shrinking dramatically” as governments rely on emerging technologies to stifle dissent while major digital platforms manipulate online information for profit.
“Freedom of opinion and expression, a fundamental inalienable human right, has been privatized, monetized, manipulated and unlawfully restricted,” she said.
The digital revolution, she said, has brought major benefits but at the price of rising social costs, harming women through online violence, endangering children via artificial intelligence (AI), undermining journalists’ livelihoods, and weakening public opinion through misinformation and hate.
“AI is running amok. From the highly political to the deeply personal, nothing is out of bounds for new technologies. Innovation at speed with no guardrails is a recipe for disaster,” Khan said.
She observed that some governments deploy AI-powered automated bot networks to disseminate disinformation, hate speech and incitements to violence.
For example, her report said, Canada’s rapid response mechanism found six AI chatbots that amplified leaked personal data of five journalists targeted in a “hack-and-leak” operation linked to the Islamic Republic of Iran.
RECOMMENDATIONS
Khan in a press conference on Thursday divulged some recommendations in dealing with issues concerning freedom of expression. First, the need for “coalitions of multistakeholders, not just of governments themselves.”
“Secondly, I’m asking for strengthening of institutions, institutional counterweights, as I put it, and that’s particularly of regulation that is rooted in human rights law,” she said.
Rather than imposing excessive rules, governments should adopt smart regulation based on international human rights law and ensure regulators can operate independently without political interference.
“And also to look at how to reduce the monopoly—the monopoly that in the digital sector, the reliance on large companies must be broken. That must become a priority,” Khan stressed.
She urged that governments must foster an environment where independent, diverse, and pluralistic media can thrive, warning that such conditions are disappearing.
“The diversity and pluralism of the media is disappearing. That needs to be brought back because, as you know, the media is a very important pillar of democracy,” she said.
NUJP REACTION
In a statement, the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP) thanked Khan for reiterating in her final report how “terrorism financing laws in the Philippines have been used against many journalists and human rights defenders” and for citing the case of Cumpio and Domequil, Inquirer added.
“While many cases against human rights defenders have been dismissed for lack of evidence, it is clear that anti-terror laws are wielded by the Philippine government to silence critical voices. It is high time to assess the impacts of these laws on the exercise of fundamental rights such as freedom of expression and opinion,” the group said.
The NUJP agreed with Khan’s observations about the collusion between governments and technology oligarchs to repress free speech and spread hate.
“Human rights defenders and journalists have been calling on Meta to regulate posts red-tagging individuals and organizations, but to no avail,” it said.
The NUJP also noted how the Marcos administration has refused to abolish the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict(NTF-ELCAC), which, together with state security forces, “continue to red-tag journalists and activists, ignoring the Supreme Court jurisprudence declaring red-tagging as a “threat to life, liberty and security.”
The group urged the government to implement Khan’s recommendations following her 2024 visit, including the decriminalization of libel, passage of a freedom of information law, a clear-cut policy against Red-tagging and a review of anti-terror laws, the Inquirer concluded.