Public trust in Philippine media has experienced a sharp decline, marking the steepest drop among 48 countries surveyed in the latest Reuters Institute Digital News Report (DNR).
The study reveals that media trust in the country fell to 28 percent, a steep 10-percentage-point decrease from the previous year’s 38 percent.
Journalism professor Yvonne Chua, who authored the country profile for the report, emphasized the severity of the decline.
“The fall pulled the Philippines below the global average of 37%, itself the lowest level since the DNR began tracking trust in news in 2015,” Chua said. “It erased recent gains: trust stood at 27% in 2020, rose to 38% in 2025, then dropped back to 28% this year.”
The findings indicate that social media remains the primary gateway for news in the Philippines as traditional media formats continue to weaken.
While 85 percent of respondents use a combination of online platforms, apps, and podcasts for news, 70 percent specifically turn to social media. In contrast, television news consumption has dropped to 42 percent, while print newspaper readership has shrunk to 10 percent.
Chua noted that this migration toward platform-centric consumption is fundamentally altering how citizens interact with journalism.
“Fewer Filipinos now access news directly via TV, radio or websites, while social media use remains stable, suggesting that more people encounter journalism through platform feeds shaped by polarization, political messaging and disinformation,” Chua observed.
Facebook remains the dominant platform for news retrieval, rising to 72 percent usage. Other digital platforms, including TikTok, Facebook Messenger, and Instagram, also recorded increases as sources of news.
According to the report, the worldwide dip in media trust is driven by political instability and noisy, fragmented information ecosystems. In the Philippines, these global trends collide with severe domestic pressures on the press.
“The Philippines fits most of those conditions. From the Duterte years to the Marcos administration, its public sphere has been marked by political polarization, disinformation, especially during elections, alongside red-tagging, lawfare, online harassment, media criticism and killing of journalists,” Chua explained.
The report concludes that the shifting environment presents significant hurdles for local news organizations attempting to maintain an informed public.
“These pressures now collide with a platform-driven environment where professional reporting competes with partisan and influencer-driven content,” Chua concluded.