Press freedom: Phl moves up to 141st

BAGUIO CITY, Philippines – The Philippines ranked 141st among 180 countries indexed by the Paris-based press freedom watchdog Reporters Sans Frontieres (Reporters Without Borders) for this year.

In its World Press Freedom Index in 2014, the RSF placed the Philippines in 149th place, and 147th in 2013. In 2011-2012, the Philippines ranked 140th.

In 2010, the country ranked 147th, mainly because of the 2009 Maguindanao massacre of 58 people, more than 30 of them journalists. It was described as “the world’s worst killing of journalists in a single incident.”

The RSF’s World Press Freedom Index ranks the performance of 180 countries according to a range of criteria that include media pluralism and independence, respect for the safety and freedom of journalists, and the legislative, institutional and infrastructural environment for the media to operate.

Finland topped the list for the fifth time, followed by Norway and Denmark.

At the bottom of the list are Turkmenistan, North Korea and Eritrea as “the worst performers.”

France, where the RSF head office is based, is ranked 38th (up one place) while the United States 49th (down three places), Japan 61st (down two), Brazil 99 (up 12), Russia 152 (down four), Iran 173rd (unchanged) and China 176th (down one).

According to RSF, the indicators compiled are incontestable. There was a drastic decline in freedom of information in 2014, it said. “Two-thirds of the 180 countries surveyed performed less well than in the previous year.”

The annual global indicator, which measures the overall level of violations of freedom of information in 180 countries year by year, has risen to 3,719, an 8 percent increase over 2014 and almost 10 percent compared with 2013.

Although the decline affected all continents, the European Union-Balkans region is in the lead by far, the RSF said, but nonetheless it recorded the biggest fall between the 2014 and 2015 editions.