“Hope is what it offers,” Rasa said when asked if he thought the tide was turning under the watch of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., whose office has said the leader respects freedom of the press. .
Media watchdogs and human rights groups hailed the court’s decision, which they said was a victory for journalists and the rule of law.
“This is a victory for press freedom in the Philippines,” Carlos Conde, senior researcher at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement.
The challenge for the Marcos administration, Conde said, is “to take stock of this and ensure that journalists do their jobs without fear”.
In October, a radio journalist was shot dead, one of hundreds killed over the past decade.
The Philippines ranks 147th out of 180 countries in the 2022 World Press Freedom Index, and the Committee to Protect Journalists ranks the Philippines seventh in the world in its 2021 Impunity Index, which tracks the deaths of media members whose The killers go free.
