In his radio broadcasts, Aresio Padrigao attacked city hall, the local government and, too, the local police and the local Department of Environment and Natural Resources office for what he saw was a failure to catch illegal loggers. On Nov. 17, he was shot dead.

PRESS FREEDOM   By Carlos H. Conde |  A Right of Reply law will undermine the Bill of Rights. It will intimidate journalists and prevent them from performing their watchdog functions because the potential cost of doing their job is rather high – fine, imprisonment or closure.

By Carlos H. Conde |  Perhaps with the exception of the mosquito press during the martial-law years, the Philippine press has never quite shown us why it deserves to be called the “fourth estate.”

BANGKOK, Thailand (SEAPA) - Dr. Surin Pitsuwan, Secretary-General of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), called on Southeast Asian journalists to promote the rights of the region’s people—including their rights to know and to be heard—and in so doing help build a more open, more progressive regional community.
Speaking during the 10th anniversary celebration [...]

“The right to reply should be looked upon not as an infringement on the freedom of speech and expression now being enjoyed by the media. It is an expansion of the right of the people to express the other side of a controversy in which they are unduly maligned,” he said.

Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Q. Pimentel, Jr. today urged Congress to stop dilly-dallying on the bill decriminalizing libel which has been proposed a long time ago to make the law less harsh for journalists who are punished for reports that are unfair and defamatory to certain individuals.

New York, September 16, 2008—The Committee to Protect Journalists will honor courageous journalists from Iraq, Afghanistan, Uganda, and Cuba with its 2008 International Press Freedom Awards at a ceremony in November.
Bilal Hussein of Iraq, Danish Karokhel and Farida Nekzad of Afghanistan, Andrew Mwenda of Uganda, and Héctor Maseda Gutiérrez of Cuba have all risked imprisonment, [...]

By Pete Lacaba
Both Manila Ordinance 7780 and House Bill 3305 purport to be anti-obscenity and anti-pornography measures. I’m no legal expert, but it seems to me that both of these measures are really censorship laws and clearly go against Constitution.

Reporters Without Borders called today for more police to investigate the killings of five journalists in the Philippines this year, including the latest victim, former radio presenter Rolando Anjo Julia, in the central province of Camarines Sur.
“Until the motives for these crimes have been discovered and their authors punished, people will continue to doubt the [...]

The murder in broad daylight of Capiz broadcaster Martin Roxas on Thursday, August 7, mocks government’s claims that it has brought down the incidence of extrajudicial killings, particularly the murder of journalists.
Roxas, 32, is the fourth journalist murdered this year and the 59th since President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo came to power in 2001.
The brazenness with which [...]

New York, August 7, 2008—Motorcycle-riding gunmen killed radio commentator Martin Roxas today in the second brutal shooting of a broadcaster in the Philippines this week, according to local and international news reports.
Two men shot Roxas in the back as he drove his motorcycle from DYVR station in Roxas City, on the country’s central Panay island, [...]

CMFR/PHILIPPINES – A radio broadcaster was killed on 7 August 2008 by a gunman riding pillion on a motorcycle in Roxas City, Capiz. Capiz is approximately 411 kms southeast of Manila.
Martin Roxas, program director of dyKR-Radio Mindanao Network (RMN) in Roxas, was shot in the nape. Roxas was himself on a motorcycle. He was pronounced [...]

Radio Mindanao Network talk show host Dennis Cuesta is in a coma after being shot five times at close range Tuesday while walking in a shopping mall in General Santos City.

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) is extremely concerned for the safety of a Palawan journalist who received death threats on his cellular phone on April 4.
According to the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP), an IFJ affiliate, a correspondent of the Philippine Daily Inquirer, Redempto Anda, fears for his life after receiving [...]

A Palawan-based journalist was threatened with death on 3 April 2008 after he wrote that a mining company was blocking plans to declare a forest in Brooke’s Point, Palawan as a protected area. Palawan is an island southwest of Manila.
Redempto Anda, a Philippine Daily Inquirer correspondent and an editor for the local newspaper Palawan Star, [...]

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) condemns today’s decision by a Beijing court to sentence human rights activist Hu Jia to three and a half years’ jail and one year’s denial of political rights on charges of “inciting subversion to state power”.
Hu, 35, was arrested on December 27, 2007, and formally charged on January 29, [...]

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) welcomes a decision by the Cebu Regional Trial Court (RTC) in the Philippines in finding John Lloyd Ortiz guilty of attempted murder of Cebu radio broadcaster Cirse “Choy” Torrabla on June 8, 2004.
According to the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP), an IFJ affiliate, Judge Estela Alam [...]

The International Federation of Journalists (FNJ) is alarmed at continuing attacks on journalists and media houses by factional groups and security personnel in Nepal after two serious attacks were reported this week.
According to the Federation of Nepali Journalists (FNJ), an IFJ affiliate, Gorkhapatra district correspondent and president of the FNJ Bajhang chapter Deepak Oli was [...]