Mass media in the Philippines
Broadcast radio stations in the Philippines are assigned four-letter callsigns, containing the two-letter prefixes DW, DX, DY and DZ.
The Philippines is one of the few Asian countries that use callsigns for broadcast radio stations (the others being Indonesia, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan).
Since 2017, PBS has also ventured into music broadcasting, with the top 40-formatted Republika FM1 and the adult contemporary-formatted Capital FM2, both located in Metro Manila.
This strategy was strongly considered due to the growing number of Filipinos who use social media instead of television in watching the news through snippets or short video clips.
Alternative media outlets present in the Philippines include Tudla Productions, Southern Tagalog Exposure, Mayday Multimedia, Altermidya,[5] and Bulatlat.
From July 2022 to April 2024, of these attacks, 50 were carried out by military, police, or other state agents, 28 by private individuals, and 27 by political figures.
[18] United Nations Special Rapporteur on freedom of opinion and expression Irene Khan in 2024 urged the government to do more to stop the killing of journalists in the Philippines.
[24] Jose Miguel Arroyo sued for libel after the journalists published investigative reports about his undeclared properties in the United States.
[25] Arrest warrants were also served to four other Newsbreak journalists: Vitug, Maan Hontiveros, Lala Rimando, and Aries Rufo.
[26] Members of the NUJP lit candles to protest Bagayaua's arrest,[26] while the Committee to Protect Journalists described the libel suit as a "battering ram against press freedom".
[27] Rappler CEO Maria Ressa was among those convicted of cyber libel in a 2020 case involving the retroactive application of a then new cybercrime law to an article that had been published years before.
In the 19th Congress, Rep. France Castro of the Alliance of Concerned Teachers party list filed House Bill 569, which aimed to decriminalize libel.
Red-tagging endangers journalists and makes them vulnerable to violence and to being jailed on trumped up charges, such as illegal possession of firearms.
[36] Government agencies, such as the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict chaired by the President of the Philippines, have used red-tagging against journalists.
[37] In 2020, Tacloban-based journalist Frenchie Mae Cumpio was arrested and detained on charges of terrorism financing and illegal possession of firearms.
[18] United Nations Special Rapporteur Irene Khan stated in 2024 that the charges against Cumpio came after months of red-tagging, surveillance, intimidation, and harassment, and appears to have been done in retaliation to her coverage of alleged human rights abuses by the police and the military.
[43][44][45] Many of these media watchdogs[43] have issued statements placing the ABS-CBN broadcast stoppage in the context of systemic attacks against press freedom in the Philippines.
[46][47] Before the declaration of martial law in September 1972, mass media in the Philippines functioned as a government watchdog and source of information for citizens.
Marcos exerted considerable effort to stifle the free press, which is considered a key feature of a functioning democracy.
