A dynamic and allegedly “freest” country in Asia, enjoying relative press freedom in comparison with its neighbours, recent cases of harassment of media outlets and representatives regarded as critical of the past and present administrations shed a different light on the Philippines.
An archipelago of about 7600 islands buffeted by the South China Sea on the west and the Pacific Ocean on the east, the Philippines has been a constitutional republic with a presidential democracy since July 4th 1946, when the Treaty of Manila was signed and recognised by the United States and the United Nations.
Colonised by the Spanish in 1546, the country was then ceded to the United States, lost to the Japanese Empire in the Second World War and finally independent in 1946. As a result of historical influences, the country – one of the largest Catholic nations in the world – is an amalgamation of different cultures, practices, cuisines and identities. While located in Southeast Asia, the country retains the influence of the Spanish and more contemporary US Western cultures in its cuisine, practices, legal frameworks and political standards.
The 34th largest economy in the world which is transitioning from agriculture to manufacturing and services with the advent of the Internet, mobile technology, a young population and a fillip from the pandemic, the Philippines today is becoming a digital first country, especially in the urban centres.
The free speech media mandate is a throwback to the Western legal and political frameworks established during the post-World War, US administration and the early post-independence Philippine government.
There have been challenges to this freedom of press however – first from the military dictator Ferdinand Marcos in 1972, and then in 2016 during the Rodrigo Duterte administration.
Duterte’s administration “red tagged” individuals and media companies including online media Rappler’s Nobel Peace Laureate Maria Ressa and ABS CBN, the nation’s second largest broadcaster, for publishing overly critical content. This practice of “red tagging” interestingly still remains in place under the more moderate and consensual administration of Ferdinand “Bombong” Marcos Junior.
The Philippines’ media landscape is a contradiction in terms. As a rapidly transforming digital nation, the socio-economic divide between the rural and urban population centres exacerbates the inequalities and the primacy of legacy news and information providers.
While the urban centres are seeing a sharp and continuous decline in legacy printed newspapers and a movement towards online digital news sources, there is, however, growing support in the rural provinces for traditional, parochial newspapers, broadcasters and news vendors.
Bucking the trend, television and radio broadcasters enjoy resurgent support from both rural and urban populations with new age social media video-on-demand content growing rapidly.
A world of duopolies, the broadcast1 segment is dominated by the GMA 7 Television network claiming almost 50% of the nation’s available viewership. The other major player ABS-CBN, having lost its licence, has been growing its online video-on-demand platform significantly and arguably counts a younger, more upwardly mobile demographic.
Print media have been struggling with the nation’s daily of record The Philippines Daily Inquirer (PDI) ceasing production in June 2025 and transferring all assets and content production capabilities to its sister online media Inquirer.net, which has been growing steadily in readership and support. However, other legacy media are under severe stress as well as they transform and demarcate their position in the media landscape.
Similar transformations are in the process with the likes of Manila Bulletin, Malaya Business Insight, The Manila Times, Daily Tribune, Business Mirror, and Philippines Star, re-focusing their resources to drive online and social media platform revenues.
The readership/following for the traditional, community based media in the provinces, especially Mindanao, Luzon and Visayas, retain strong support and in fact is growing. The media in the provinces not only enjoy local support but also collective participatory interest, with their established reputations as the voice of the region.
The Philippines News Agency is the nation’s established news wire service providing content to and from the country’s National Capital Region (NCR) and the provinces.
The blurring of the lines between partisan vested interest, politically motivated groups, and the media owning families has been a rising trend in the Philippines recently at both provincial and national levels.
For example, the Villar family, a close ally of the Duterte political agenda has launched an alternative to national broadcasters through its Villar Group. Similarly, Prime Media controlled by Martin Romualdez, the House of Representatives Speaker has established a joint venture with ABS-CBN to wield greater public influence. This obscures the separation between politics and journalism in a country where free press and speech has been championed and is at best ephemeral.
Often described as a mobile first country, where internet access is primarily through smart phones or mobile devices, the Philippines registered over 89 million internet users in 2024 – among the highest in the world. More than 76 million Filipinos have smart phones or mobile devices as their primary communications device – which is also a very high rate for a developing nation.
Ironically, the telecommunications network in the Philippines is underdeveloped with many rural areas suffering from a lack of access to the internet with even basic 2G connectivity being unreliable. In fact, the internet speeds are even lower than the global average, inhibiting access to the Internet for young people and children in the rural provinces.
Despite all these challenges, the rise of social media and independent content producers has been remarkable. While the demand for such social content is growing, economic success and viability of such producers are under threat as revenue streams are uncertain and unsustainable. These micro, nano influencers, social media content producers follow trends, re-producing content without stringent quality standards, editorial discipline, leading to the wholesale dissemination of misinformation and being vulnerable to vested interest agendas.
Smart phone, digital, social media and internet consumption is generational with younger, upwardly mobile, and digitally savvy Filipinos spending significant hours in the day on their devices. As such, much of the content is trendy, following popular agendas, immature and targeted at generating eyeballs rather than validating information.
Similar to influencers, the specialist sector, trade or special interest media find revenue streams unsustainable and difficult to build. As such, the Philippines today lacks a credible range of specialist media brands, often importing and consuming international content from the US, Europe and the regional media hubs of Singapore and Hong Kong.
Editorial integrity of many of these independent social and online media has been called into question by international journalism watch bodies due to several questionable reporting and content being published in the hunt for readership and followers.
Working in the Philippines and with the Filipino media can be a tricky proposition for brands as at first glance it seems to be a vibrant, dynamic market. However, due to a conflating of competing factors, brands can be misled to being managed by the media to cater to their sensational needs – leading to an unmanageable media circus.
Partnering with an experienced firm to guide you through the landscape and identifying the opportunities to successfully tell the stories that compel action and to connect in a meaningful way is the imperative.
Priority Consultants has been working in the Philippines with the Filipino media and social influencers since 2012. We have established a proven method to deliver outcomes that are measurable and valuable to the businesses we represent in the country.
Speak with us to learn how you can leverage our local knowledge and connections to extend your brand profile in the Philippines.
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