How free is our press?

GIVEN the freewheeling articles in many of our newspapers as well as the hard-hitting commentaries on radio and television, it's tempting to think the Philippine press must be one of the freest in the world.

Not quite, according to the first worldwide press freedom index compiled by the Reporters Without Borders (RSF, from the French name Reporters Sans Frontieres). The index is being released to commemorate World Press Freedom Day, which falls on May 3. (You can get the full list on www.rsf.fr.)

I don't want to keep you in suspense, so let me tell you how we fared: We ranked 89th out of 139 countries.

RSF explains that the index was drawn up by asking journalists, researchers and legal experts to answer 50 questions about a range of possible violations of press freedom. This included censorship, murders or arrests of journalists, state monopolies, punishment of press law offenses.

The global picture is grim. In 16 Latin American countries, for example, journalists can still be sent to jail if found guilty of "insulting" public officials. In Cuba, 30 journalists are in prison, and when RSF activists recently protested in front of the Cuban Embassy in Paris, they were beaten up by embassy guards.

So far this year, 15 journalists have been killed worldwide. Nine were killed in Iraq during the invasion, most of them dying from "friendly fire" of the US-led forces.

Developed Western democracies topped the list for press freedom, with Finland, Iceland, Norway and the Netherlands tying for first place, followed by Canada in fifth. The United States only ranked 17th because of the number of journalists who have been arrested or imprisoned there, mainly for refusing to reveal their sources in court.

RSF notes that rich countries don't have a monopoly on press freedom. The developing countries that had high rankings were Costa Rica (15th), Ecuador (20th), Benin and Uruguay (21st), Chile (24th), South Africa (26th), Namibia (31st), Paraguay (32nd) and El Salvador (33rd).

Our rank of 89th put us behind many Southeast and East Asian countries: Hong Kong (18th), Japan (26th), Taiwan (35th), South Korea (39th), Indonesia (57th), Cambodia (71st) and Thailand (65th).

Neighboring countries with lower ratings than us were: Malaysia (110th), Brunei (111th), Vietnam (131st) and Laos (133rd). The three countries with the lowest ratings in the world were Burma (137th), China (138th) and North Korea (139th). (Singapore wasn't anywhere on the list but I would think they ranked lower than we did.)

We can see the countries that had lower ratings than we do are those where there is tight state control of the media. RSF has many documented cases of imprisonment of Chinese journalists, including "cyberdissidents" or people who maintain websites that carry critical political views.

Press freedom relates as well to the overall peace and order situation in a country. Colombia, for example, ranks 114th because of the war there with drug lords. The Philippines' low rating was due, in part, to the armed conflicts we have. RSF notes, for example, that two radio stations in Mindanao were bombed in 2002.

Last year 26 journalists were murdered worldwide, of whom three were Filipino. The first victim was Benjaline Hernandez, who was on the staff of Atenews, Ateneo de Davao's student newspaper. Hernandez was a member of the human rights group Karapatan and was part of a fact-finding team looking into the situation in Arakan Valley, Cotabato, when she was killed on April 5, together with three other people. The military said she was caught in the crossfire but there are suspicions she was murdered.

The second murdered journalist was Edgar Damalerio of Pagadian City. Damalerio edited the Zamboanga Scribe and was a commentator in a local radio station, DXKP. He tackled many corruption issues. The Damalerio case continues to be the focus of much concern because a key witness was eventually murdered while the main suspect in the assassination was able to escape from jail.

The last case in 2002 was that of Sonny Alcantara, who published a San Pablo City weekly called Kokus and was also a commentator in a local cable television channel. He was gunned down on Aug. 22.

During the Marcos dictatorship journalists faced many threats of arrests, imprisonment and outright salvaging. The situation certainly has improved, but 38 Filipino journalists have lost their lives since the restoration of democracy in 1986, underscoring the fact that the restoration of democratic institutions does not automatically ensure press freedom. Most of the murders have been outside of Metro Manila, reflecting how powerful local political warlords, as well as their lawyers and private armies, can make life very dangerous for local journalists.

It's striking that there is global attention focused on the situation of local journalists, down to the cities of Pagadian, Davao and San Pablo. "World Press Freedom Day" does remind us that we now live in a world where borders are coming down, making press freedom a global concern. I'm thinking SARS here. If the Chinese mass media had been more free to report on the growing problem of "atypical pneumonia" in Guangdong province, SARS could have been contained early enough.

I will resume writing about SARS next week. Meanwhile, readers might want to visit the website of Ateneo's Institute of Philippine Culture (www.ipc-ateneo.org.ph) where resource persons, including myself, can answer questions related to the disease. This will go on till May 2.