Philippines’ freedom of expression remains ‘highly restricted’

The Philippines steadied at 105th  out of 161 countries in the latest edition of the Global Expression Report (GxR), which analyzed data and events in 2021. Produced by international human rights group ARTICLE 19, the index assesses how free every person is to express, communicate, and participate in a society. This includes the freedom to post online, take to the streets, investigate, and access the information needed to keep leaders accountable. It also measures whether people can do this without fear of harassment, legal repercussions, or violence. The report uses the GxR metric, which scales a country’s overall score between 0 (not free) and 100 (freest). The Philippines got an overall GxR score of 37, which meant its citizens’ freedom of expression was “highly restricted.” It was unchanged from the previous edition of the report. It was below the global and Asia-Pacific region’s overall GxR scores of 50 and 42, respectively.