IBON opposes House Bill No. 9465 or the proposed Digital Media Anti-False Information Act. While presented as a measure against disinformation, the bill threatens independent economic research, democratic debate, and the public’s right to know the real state of the economy.
The bill is anchored on the dangerous assumption that government authorities can determine what is true or false in matters subject to competing interpretations and legitimate debate. However, in economics, virtually every major policy issue can have contending analyses of the same facts.
Is economic growth improving the lives of ordinary Filipinos? Is the job situation improving and poverty declining? Is inflation under control, and government debt sustainable? Is foreign investment developing the country? Are economic fundamentals sound?
The government, businesses, academics, community and sectoral groups, and civil society normally have different conclusions on the same data. There is disagreement not because of disinformation, but because democratic discourse and debate is in play.
IBON has engaged in precisely this kind of public interest research since 1978. Founded during the Marcos dictatorship, when information was tightly controlled and dissent suppressed, IBON emerged from the conviction that people have the right to know the country’s real conditions in order to act for meaningful change.
For nearly five decades now, IBON has consistently highlighted economic realities that the government and those in power prefer to downplay: depressed wages, soaring prices, widespread joblessness and precarious work, chronic poverty, inadequate social services, mounting public debt, worsening inequality and wealth for a few, and stubborn economic backwardness. Such findings have been dismissed or attacked and, on occasion, even been declared as false data by government officials.
Yet the most important economic truths only really become visible when independent institutions and voices challenge official narratives. Economic truth cannot be established by government decree.
Understanding economic conditions requires open discussion, competing analyses, and evidence-based debate. Governments may point to growth, investments and profits, while independent researchers may highlight stagnant incomes and hunger, deteriorating public services, and concentrated wealth and power. Citizens deserve access to both perspectives.
Every functioning democracy requires institutions to be open to criticism. Independent economic research is vital to reveal the policy, regulatory and governance failures that distort the economy and keep tens of millions of Filipinos in poverty. The proposed bill wants exposing these realities to be treated as threats to public order, when they are necessary for accountability and reform.
On-going political repression makes this bill especially alarming. The country is still on a trajectory of red-tagging, judicial harassment, vilification of activists and civil society organizations, attacks on journalists, and efforts to discredit critics of government policy. In such a context, broadly worded powers to determine and penalize so-called false information are just further opportunities for the state to attack those who question official narratives.
International experience shows how anti-disinformation laws are used against critical voices while letting the powerful continue engaging in deception to reinforce official narratives. Press freedom groups, legal observers, and human rights organizations have documented how broadly worded anti-disinformation laws are used to suppress dissent with the threat of investigation, prosecution, imprisonment, or financial penalties. In countries such as Turkey, Egypt, Singapore, and Zimbabwe, similar legislation has been used against journalists, researchers, media organizations, and critics reporting on inflation, economic hardship, corruption, public spending, and government performance.
The Philippines does not need another mechanism to police legitimate criticism. What it needs are stronger guarantees for transparency, access to information, public accountability, and meaningful democratic participation.
Policies that restrict critical inquiry and discourage independent analysis undermine efforts for urgent radical change and genuine development. They risk turning the state into an instrument of repression and concealment. No government should fear scrutiny from its citizens. Those who seek to tell the truth about the nation’s conditions should not be punished.
At a time when Filipinos face persistent economic difficulties, the space for independent research should be expanded, not quelled. Those who tell uncomfortable truths about the economy should not be threatened with punishment. The public has the right to hear competing analyses and decide for themselves.
As economic hardship deepens and more Filipinos question policies that fail to deliver meaningful development, the state is giving more attention to expanding its legal arsenal against dissent than addressing the conditions that give rise to it. HB 9465 is not an isolated measure but part of a broader pattern of shrinking democratic space, and should not pass into law. ###