Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, November 4) – The Philippines retained its title as one of the most dangerous countries for journalists, particularly for radio broadcasters, a media watchdog reported.

In the Committee to Protect Journalists’ (CPJ) 2023 Global Impunity Index for countries where the killings of journalists go unpunished, the Philippines ranked eighth. It is flanked by Mexico in seventh and Myanmar in ninth.

The Philippines has been a mainstay on the index for 16 years, since the list’s founding.

“While Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has adopted a more conciliatory approach toward the media since becoming president in June 2022, CPJ reported that a culture of self-censorship persists and Marcos’ change in tone has not yet been accompanied by substantive actions to undo the damage wrought to press freedom under the Rodrigo Duterte administration,” the CPJ said.

There have been 20 murders of journalists in the Philippines since September 2013.

Three of them took place since Marcos took office in June last year, namely the killings of Renato Blanco in September 2022, Cris Bundoquin in May 2023, and the most notorious shooting of Percival “Percy Lapid” Mabasa in October 2022.

Six radio journalists were killed in the last year alone. Aside from Blanco, Bundoquin and Mabasa, there were also Audrey Estrada, who was murdered in March 2022; Jhannah Villegas in April 2022, and Federico Gempesaw in June 2022.

Last year, the Philippines was ranked seventh on the index. But it moved down to eighth in 2023 as Haiti made its debut on the list in third place, behind Syria and Somalia, respectively, due to gang violence, poverty, political instability, and a dysfunctional judiciary.

READ: PH still 7th worst country in prosecuting journalists’ killers – report