Philippines rated ‘partly free’ by advocacy group Freedom House

Washington-based freedom advocacy group Freedom House on January 16 released their annual Freedom in the World report and for the 12th consecutive year, a decline in global freedom has been observed.

The full report on the Philippines has yet to be released, but the country has been given a "Partly Free" rating with an aggregate score of 62 out of 100.

This is one point lower than the score the country got in 2016, per the report published in 2017.

The country was given a 3 on a scale 1 to 7 on political rights, with 1 being a country that enjoys " a wide range of political rights."

A score of 3 signifies the protection of "almost all political rights or strongly protect some political rights while neglecting others."

The political rights considered are the Electoral Process (0 to 12 points), Political Pluralism and Participation (0 to 16 points), and Functioning of Government (0 to 12 points).

Questions like "Is there a significant opposition vote?" and "Are allegations of corruption involving government officials thoroughly investigated and prosecuted without prejudice or political bias?" are rated in this section.

The Philippines received the same rating for Civil Liberties.

The civil liberties considered are the Freedom of Expression and Belief (0 to 16 points), Associational and Organizational Rights (0 to 12 points), and Rule of Law (0 to 16 points), Personal Autonomy and Individual Rights (0 to 16 points).

Questions like "Do law enforcement officials beat detainees during arrest or use excessive force or torture to extract confessions?" and "Are journalists threatened, harassed online, arrested, imprisoned, beaten, or killed by government or nonstate actors for their legitimate journalistic activities, and if such cases occur, are they investigated and prosecuted fairly and expeditiously?" are rated in this section.

The Philippines is not among the countries to watch this year, but the global report notes that "antidemocratic forces on the march" in Asia-Pacific, citing the crackdown in Cambodia, the Rohingya crisis in Myanmar, Beijing's ever-greater influence in Hong Kong, and the murder liberal blogger Yameen Rasheed as causes for great alarm.

The report lists Afghanistan, Angola, Georgia, Iraq, Macedonia, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, US, and Uzbekistan as "that may be approaching important turning points in their democratic trajectory, and deserve special scrutiny during the coming year."

Freedom in the World report

Michael Abramowitz in a video posted on Facebook noted the threats against press freedom, the global migration crisis, and the rise in populism as some of the greatest threats to democracy the world is currently facing.

Abramowitz in the report released on the official website additionally remarked on the spread of Russia and China's "malign influence" abroad and a decline in the US' participation in keeping democracy alive.

"The retreat of democracies is troubling enough. Yet at the same time, the world’s leading autocracies, China and Russia, have seized the opportunity not only to step up internal repression but also to export their malign influence to other countries, which are increasingly copying their behavior and adopting their disdain for democracy," Abramowitz noted.

He added, "Beijing has even greater ambitions—and the resources to achieve them. It has built up a propaganda and censorship apparatus with global reach, used economic and other ties to influence democracies like Australia and New Zealand, compelled various countries to repatriate Chinese citizens seeking refuge abroad, and provided diplomatic and material support to repressive governments from Southeast Asia to Africa."

The Freedom House website has yet to advise when the full report for the Philippines will be released. — Aya Tantiangco/BM, GMA News