Silencing People’s Voices: State Censorship in the Anti-Disinformation Bills
Silencing People’s Voices: State Censorship in the Anti-Disinformation Bills A Position Paper on House Bill (HB) 9465 and its Senate Counterpart Defend NGOs Alliance
17 July 2026
The Defend NGOs Alliance strongly rejects HB 9465, otherwise known as the “Digital Media Anti-False Information Act”, and its counterpart in the Senate. The alliance opposes its railroaded passage in Congress, as the bills pose a dangerous threat that could close civic space. The fast-tracked passage of the pending anti-disinformation bills and its unconstitutional composition blatantly excludes stakeholders in a measure that would greatly impact them—endangering human rights and invaluable advocacy work.
The overbroad provisions stipulated in both bills, along with a biased structure for enforcement, are only some of its most alarming components.
The Defend NGOs Alliance cites the following points for the immediate scrapping of the anti-disinformation bill:
The prohibitions included in HB 9465 rely primarily on identified “verifiable public harm” and “serious threat to national security”, which are not clearly defined and oversteps into protected speech. The bill fails to establish clear parameters for criminal acts, leaving their interpretation largely to the discretion of law enforcement agencies (HB 9465, Sec. 3[x], [z]).
The bill sets the government as the arbiter of truth by authorizing the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT), an agency under the executive branch, in deciding trusted and untrusted sources—granting it powers to order algorithm de-amplification even without a justified court ruling (HB 9465, Sec. 3[c], [bb] and 7[g]).
A provision on labeled “foreign-funded covert influence operation” that causes a “serious threat to national security” can be weaponized against civil society organizations (CSOs) who receive international funding. Several CSOs like the Paghidaet sa Kauswagan Development Group, Inc. (PDG), Community Empowerment Resource Network (CERNET), Leyte Center for Development, Inc. (LCDe), and the Katinnulong Daguiti Umili iti Amianan, Inc. (KADUAMI) have all previously been falsely labeled as financing terrorists but courts dismissed these trumped up charges. A provision on foreign-funded operations is highly likely to be weaponized to the same degree as the Terrorism Financing Prevention and Suppression Act (TFPSA). Maliciously tagged “terrorists” organizations will be subjected to long years of judicial harassment (HB 9465, Sec. 4[e]).
Under HB 9465, digital platforms are required to conduct visibility regulation and risk assessments while also submitting transparency reports to the DICT. If they do not comply, very large platforms are fined with 6% of their Philippine annual gross revenue. Therefore, in order to protect this, platforms will be forced to comply with government directives and aid in the manipulation of digital spaces to favor government-approved content (HB 9465, Sec. 7 and 10).
People’s digital campaigns can also be categorized as possessing “dark patterns” or “manipulative interface designs” which could subject them into de-amplification. Moreover, the standard for suppressing content captures likelihood. Leading to the suppression of relevant information sources based on inferred criminal intent in addition to the absence of a court’s decision to verify if the content does cause “verifiable public harm” and “serious threat to national security” (HB 9465, Sec. 6[k] and 7[g]).
It imposes a severe prison sentence of six to twelve years plus a fine of five hundred thousand to two million pesos, further magnifying the chilling effect already experienced by civil society organizations, non-government organizations (NGOs), development workers, community journalists, and human rights defenders (HB 9465, Sec. 9).
The Defend NGOs Alliance likewise reject the Senate proposal of the anti-disinformation bill as its framework confuses “proactive” with an “intrusive” strategy for approaching the problem. The Senate version uses the proliferation of false information as pretext for encroaching civil liberties. It attempts to mislead the public into surrendering free speech into government hands as a “solution” to prevent exploitation of digital spaces (Harmonized SB, Sec. 2).
Under Sec. 5 of the Senate bill, it introduces the creation of a Digital Media Integrity Council (DMIC) which will be composed of majority government agencies. One of which being the Presidential Communications Office (PCO) that is under the executive branch. This council is given the important job of overseeing, regulating, and processing complaints, allowing it to become judge, jury, and executioner (Harmonized SB, Sec. 5).
Moreover, administrative takedowns and other orders issued by the DMIC do not need a court decision to be enforced (Harmonized SB, Sec. 8). Content removal can happen even before a court has determined the validity of a complaint, bypassing due process. It instead ironically compels petitioners of wiped content to appeal to the Secretary of Justice, unconstitutionally flipping the burden to users, forcing them to undergo a bureaucratic process to prove their innocence (Harmonized SB, Sec. 10).
The Senate version imposes heavy penalties of twelve to twenty years of imprisonment and a fine of up to ten million pesos. It also lowers the criminal threshold to reasonable belief that it tends to mislead. Making the penalization under the Senate version harsher than that of its already severe house bill counterpart (Harmonized SB, Sec. 7).
It includes protection of “public confidence in government” as part of upholding “public interest”. Within the framework of the bill, this inclusion is dangerous with the government once again placed as the arbiter of truth. Going beyond its former national security and public safety standard, it attempts to eliminate even state opposing speech (Harmonized SB, Sec. 2 and Sec. 3[k]).
The Senate version maintains the same qualities as HB 9465: overbroad provisions, state monopoly of truth, national security and public safety pretext, disproportionately punitive sanctions, penalization of users and a provision on foreign backed operations. Both proposed measures must be prevented from being legislated.
Furthermore, the rushed passage of HB 9465 down to its national security rhetoric is ominously reminiscent of the Anti-Terrorism Act of 2020 (ATA) or Republic Act (RA) No. 11479. ATA, which has been closely monitored for six years by human rights watch groups, has presently realized fears of its weaponization from when it was first introduced to legislation. This sets up a precedent for the enactment of the anti-disinformation bill.
The pending bills must be criticized against the backdrop of misused counter terrorism laws, i.e., ATA and TFPSA. Scrutiny surrounding these bills should not be separated from the reality of grave human rights violations perpetrated by these laws that already plague the country. Well-meaning CSOs, NGOs, development workers, community journalists, and human rights defenders that provide services to underserved communities, and support people’s assertion of rights already suffer from false accusations, arbitrary arrests, and asset freezing; baseless judicial charges and red-tagging that deplete their finances and degrade their reputation and mental well-being.
Recall also the Bayanihan to Heal as One Act or RA 11469, which punished the dissemination of false information relating to COVID 19, but was utilized instead to judicially harass journalists reporting on the government’s failed public health response. If passed, pending anti-disinformation bills will expansively shield the government from criticism. Important campaigns covering disaster and crisis response, elections, public health measures and a wide range of government operations could be suppressed. It could also prevent commentary and investigations on abuses within security forces and silence scrutiny surrounding the impacts of militarization which could further give way to more impunity.
As an alliance composed of 120 member organizations each uniquely providing sectoral, regional, and national assistance. Our allegiance lies with the vast Filipino people whom we serve. It unites with the farmers, fisherfolk, indigenous peoples, workers, urban poor communities, health workers, educators, youth, LGBTQIA+, persons with disabilities, older persons, women and children—those whose voices are barely heard. We stress that HB 9465 and its counterpart in the Senate are an impending danger to Filipinos as the passage of these draconian bills will be counterproductive to the interest of the governed majority.
We reject HB 9465 and its counterpart version at the Senate, and instead propose the following government actions to strengthen civic space and empower the public in discerning facts from disinformation:
Legislature must reject HB 9465 and similar punitive counterpart bills entirely. Instead, government effort in fighting disinformation should be shifted to fact promotion by boosting the participation of media agencies, research institutions, civil society organizations, and the academe without jeopardizing their impartiality and capacity for independent thought. This solution best serves public interest and the truth by enriching discourses rather than criminalization through loosely interpreted legislations.
An accessible and genuine media literacy education framework should be created. Despite its inclusion in the house bill’s objectives, media literacy came as an afterthought and token inclusion to serve as bait for support rather than helping it manifest its ambitious goal of preventing the spread of disinformation. HB 9465 discussed majority regulations and sanctions on spreading falsehoods rather than discussing in detail its planned efforts for media literacy.
Policymakers should protect human rights defenders from attacks by enacting the proposed measures: Human Rights Defenders Protection, Comprehensive Anti-Discrimination (CADB), Anti Red-tagging, and the Anti-SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation) bills, alongside the Commission on Human Rights Charter.
The Philippine government as a signatory of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) has a responsibility in upholding people’s right to freedom of opinion and expression. It is bound by the United Nations Human Rights Committee guidelines, which explicitly state that speech laws must never carry disproportionate criminal penalties.
The Defend NGOs Alliance recognizes the proliferation of disinformation in the modern digital space and its harm towards the public and to democracy. However, the proposed measures not only fall short sighted in the fight against disinformation, it is also a threat to advocates of truth, to civil society and to genuine people’s participation in development and democratic governance.
Countermeasures against falsehoods should not strip the Filipino people of their voices. ###
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