The National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP) joins other organizations in reiterating our demand for the scrapping of the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) memorandum ordering the blocking of 27 websites.

Media outfits Bulatlat and Pinoy Weekly were among those blocked by government on unfounded claims these groups are linked with terrorists.

The website blocking is just one of the many forms of cyber censorship from the time of Duterte, and which continue under the administration of Ferdinand Marcos Jr. The two media outfits and several others were also subjected to distributed denial of service (DDOS) attacks aiming to make their websites inaccessible.

These media outfits were consistently red-tagged by the military and government officials.

These attacks aim to deny their audiences, particularly from the marginalized and oppressed, platforms to air their grievances, and therefore constitute violation of the people’s right to free expression and opinion.

We call on the Special Rapporteur Irene Khan to heed our recommendations for the junking of the NTC order and for the repeal of Anti-Terror Act.

Reference:

National Directorate | +639602784263