208 Chasing the Wind: Assessing Philippine Democracy, Second Edition Muslim community's place in the Philippines and the recognition of its separate identity, the social and economic inequities that 300 years of Spanish conquest had created, among others— have not been resolved and have persisted. The Philippine mass media cannot ignore the realities of poverty and underdevelopment, but they are themselves caught in the contradictions and ironies that the existence of, among others, liberal laws in the context of unresolved development issues, among them an archaic land tenancy system and government corruption and lack of transparency, have created. Philippine laws affecting the mass media, particularly those on libel, inciting to sedition and obscenity, have been used to harass and silence journalists. The Movie and Television Review and Classication Board, by law mandated to classify lms, has also censored lms and even prevented their exhibition on the same justication—actions which frequently provoke lm critics, writers, directors and academics into holding demonstrations demanding the creation of a purely classicatory Board without censorship powers. Neither have the provisions in the Bill of Rights of the Philippine Constitution, which guarantee the privacy of communication and correspondence, prevented Congressional approval of an anti-terrorism bill that would violate this right. (Philippine Journalism Review, 2002: 28). The Act includes provisions that allow state agencies to monitor email and fax messages, and even to search the homes of suspected terrorists. Of equal concern is the Cyber Crime Prevention Act of 2012 (RA10175), which not only incorporates the provisions on criminal libel of the 1932 Revised Penal Code, but also raises the penalties of imprisonment by one degree. The killing of journalists But more troubling, and a vital factor in the capacity of the news media to provide the information and analysis citizens need so they may discharge their duties as the sovereign power in a declared democracy, is the assassination of journalists, which since 1986 has claimed the lives of 150 practitioners, or an average of ve each year. In 2003 the killings reached a level both local as well as foreign media advocacy groups described as “critical” when seven were killed in the line of duty (CMFR 2003. All information on the killing of journalists, as well as threats and harassments against them are from this site.) The killings have seriously undermined the often-repeated claim that the Philippine press is “the freest in Asia.” The Philippines has indeed been ranked by international media watch groups such as Reporters Sans Frontieres (RSF) below such other Asian countries as Cambodia, Thailand and Indonesia in terms of press freedom compliance because of the killings. The Philippines fell further in the 2009 RSF rankings due to the Ampatuan Massacre of November 23, 2009 (Worldwide Press Freedom Index 2010). The Philippine press began 2003 inauspiciously with the country's being