Despite ‘obvious and increasing constraints,’ the Philippines has landed in the ‘middle ground’ of countries where universities can still teach, research, publish and speak freely, according to the latest Academic Freedom Index.
Produced by the V-Dem Institute and the Institute of Political Science at Friedrich-Alexander-Universitat Erlangen-Nurnberg, the index draws on assessments from more than 2,000 scholars worldwide.
Dr. Alicor Panao, an Inquirer data scientist and associate professor at the University of the Philippines, said the list shows ‘a country can have world-class universities and still see academic freedom slip.’
While changes between 2024 and 2025 were generally modest in most of the world, the overall trend is downward.
‘More countries declined than improved,’ Panao said, pointing to what he described as a decade-long pattern of erosion.
The Philippines scored 0.659, down 0.070, placing it between more restrictive systems and those with stronger protections. It ranked above Thailand and Indonesia, but below Taiwan and South Korea.
It also scored higher than Singapore, despite the latter’s competitive universities.
But while Panao said ‘a decline in scores does not always mean outright repression,’ he noted that experts have attributed the Philippines’ score to ‘weakening campus integrity and incidents of red-tagging,’ which creates ‘a chilling effect on academic expression.’
In 2024, the Supreme Court declared that red-tagging, vilification, labeling and guilt by association threaten a person’s right to life, liberty or security, which may warrant the issuance of a writ of amparo.
The ruling came from the Supreme Court En Banc in a decision penned by Associate Justice Rodil Zalameda, granting the writ of amparo petitioned by activist Siegfred Deduro.
In 2021, Branch 3 of the Baguio Regional Trial Court ordered the Cordillera police to stop labeling some students and graduates of UP Baguio as communists and terrorists.
For Panao, these pressures, while not amounting to outright repression, signal tightening constraints within academic institutions.
The findings reflect a broader warning embedded in the index: Declines do not always come through dramatic crackdowns. Instead, they can emerge gradually through subtler forms of interference – such as influencing hiring decisions, shaping curricula or exerting quiet pressure on university administrators.
Worldwide, the contrast remains clear.
Countries like Estonia and the Czech Republic continue to rank among the most academically free, while severe restrictions persist in North Korea and Eritrea.
One of the more striking developments this year is the sharp decline recorded by the United States, long regarded as home to many of the world’s top universities. The drop points to increasing political intervention in higher education and underscores a key finding of the report: Academic prestige does not necessarily guarantee institutional independence.
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Based on the index, Panao said that when universities begin to lose institutional independence, ‘the space for free inquiry and critical thought may be the next to go.’