Region

CEGP-CORDILLERA: DUTERTE DISREGARDS PRESS FREEDOM

/ 28 July 2021

THE COLLEGE Editors Guild of the Philppines-Cordillera slammed the Duterte administration for “blatantly” ignoring press freedom.

CEGP said that under the Duterte administration, press freedom was under constant threat with the tyrannical attacks and brazen silencing of journalists, especially those who are critical of the government’s “unjust” policies.

“President Rodrigo Duterte’s term commences its last year, yet his administration’s promises since 2016 are still far from true and the country’s systems and the socio-political situation worsened especially now under the global pandemic,” CEGP said.

Red-tagging, libel, harassment threaten students and campus journalists, it lamented.

The group reiterated that press freedom is essential to democracy.

“Without it, people are deprived of accurate, factual, and critical information. But with the data and facts above, Duterte’s administration blatantly disregards this constitutionally granted right and freedom of journalists,” it said.