The IPI global network strongly condemns today’s conviction and sentencing of 26-year-old Philippine journalist Frenchie Mae Cumpio to a maximum of 18 years in prison on spurious charges of financing terrorism and calls for her immediate release.
The verdict was announced in a Tacloban city courtroom by Judge Georgina Perez. Cumpio and her former roommate Marielle Domequil – who was on trial alongside her – were acquitted of a second charge, illegal possession of firearms.
Cumpio will appeal the verdict, her lawyer said.
Today’s proceedings mark the end of a nearly six-year-long legal process, marred by due process violations and irregularities. Cumpio has spent the vast majority of those six years in pre-trial detention, which has been denounced by press freedom and human rights groups – including the UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of opinion and expression – as unjustifiably and inexplicably long. It was not until four years into her detention that Cumpio was allowed to take the witness stand in her own defense.
“IPI strongly condemns the outrageous sentence of Frenchie Mae Cumpio, which represents a deeply dangerous abuse of counterterrorism legislation in the Philippines,” said IPI Director of Advocacy Amy Brouillette. “Frenchie was just 21 years old when she was first arrested and imprisoned on trumped up charges clearly aimed at silencing independent media. This sentence is a complete miscarriage of justice that sends a chilling message to every independent journalist in the Philippines.”
Cumpio is the executive director of Eastern Vista, an alternative news organization based in Tacloban city. Her legal troubles began when she was arrested in the middle of the night on February 7, 2020, and charged with illegal arms possession. Cumpio has repeatedly denied these charges, saying authorities planted a grenade and firearm during the raid on her home.
In the months prior to her arrest, Cumpio was a target of “red-tagging,” the practice of labeling individuals or organizations as communist sympathizers or terrorists without substantial evidence. Cumpio also told colleagues that just before her arrest, she had received a series of threats, which she believed were in retaliation for her reporting abuses of power carried out by police and state security.
In 2020, authorities added new charges to her case, filed in a separate court, inexplicably accusing her of the double murder of two soldiers. The charges were not revealed publicly for five years, then dropped in November 2025. In 2021, more than a year after her initial arrest, authorities added a charge of terrorism financing – the only charge she was ultimately convicted of.