Raising the Cost of Repression: Democratic Backsliding and Academic Freedom in the Philippines

Abstract

This article examines the relationship between democratic backsliding and academic freedom in the Philippines, a weakly consolidated democracy now classified as a hybrid regime. While scholarship on democratic backsliding has expanded, its implications for universities and knowledge production remain underexplored. Drawing on original data on academic freedom violations, complemented by interviews and public forums across Manila, Cebu, Baguio and Iligan, the study employs process tracing to identify causal mechanisms linking democratic backsliding to constraints on academic freedom. Three case studies highlight distinct dynamics: the Rodrigo Duterte administration’s “war on drugs”, which primarily targeted the press rather than scholars; the intensification of the counterinsurgency against the communist rebellion, which institutionalised red-tagging and securitisation in the education sector; and the Marcos family’s political restoration, which relied on coercive historical revisionism and censorship. The findings demonstrate that academic freedom is most vulnerable where epistemic authority threatens regime legitimacy, particularly in contexts of truth claims about state violence and historical memory. At the same time, this study documents solidarity – through faculty unions, student organisations, and academic freedom networks – that have sought to raise the cost of repression. The Philippine case offers broader comparative insight into how democratic backsliding reshapes universities and the academic sector as sites of contestation, provoking specific forms of resistance.