5 Best Free VPNs for Philippines [Updated – September 2021]

The Philippines used to be one of the freest countries in Southeast Asia. But, tragically, the situation has significantly worsened since President Duterte took the helm of the country.

In recent times, press, journalism, and freedom of speech have suffered greatly as critical voices face the threat of being charged for libel. Furthermore, there are hardly any legal protections for journalists and activists, and governmental high-handedness manipulates content on social media and news websites in their favour.

With the strengthening dictatorship in the country, it is imperative for people in the Philippines to take extra precautions when using the internet. Using one of the best free VPNs for Philippines is the easiest way to establish a wall of privacy online and shelter yourself from the governmental invasion of privacy and thus suppression of voices.

While a free VPN can offer you some extent of online privacy, there’s no way it can match the quality of privacy and performance a premium VPN provider will provide you with. A premium provider like ExpressVPN can outclass every free VPN provider in this list regarding online privacy, security, and overall internet experience.

Therefore, we highly recommend that our Philippine readers trust a premium VPN provider like ExpressVPN.

This article will focus on the best free VPN service in the Philippines, which are legitimate and trustworthy for use.

Why are Free VPNs discouraged in the Philippines?

While the idea of using a free VPN in the Philippines is very tempting, we have to inform you that it is very much dangerous, and we don’t recommend using a free VPN in the Philippines. Furthermore, unlike premium VPN providers, there are many disadvantages to free VPNs. A few of them have been listed down for you:

1. Free VPN providers profit from targeted advertisements towards you and are often caught selling their subscribers’ internet activity data and personal information.
2. They offer limited bandwidth on their accounts, making the service useless for torrenting, gaming, and streaming.
3. Due to the few server locations, it is highly unlikely to find your desired location server.
4. With fewer servers and a high number of users connecting to them, you will encounter slow speed issues regularly.

Before we get into our best free VPN for the Philippines, it is worth knowing that there are premium VPN providers out there which can cost you as low as $2.49/mo and offer much better security, privacy, and performance than a free VPN can ever provide.

Some benefits of Premium VPNs:

Free VPNs can never be better than premium VPNs. Let’s check out why:

1. Extensive bandwidth and comprehensive network with servers in almost all of the major countries
2. High-speed network speeds with efficient server load-balancing
3. No-log policy for complete anonymity and privacy
4. Compatible with all major operating systems and devices

5 Best Free VPNs for Philippines [Updated – September 2021]

Here’s a list of the five best free VPNs for Philippines that offer strong privacy for Filipinos free of cost:

1. Windscribe – Free Privacy Protection for Filipinos

Windscribe is the best free VPN for the Philippines. It is highly trusted available for free, but it has no Philippines servers. This is the case with almost all VPNs available free of cost, as most such providers have a small server network with servers in only a few major countries. So, if you’re looking for the best free VPN for a Philippines server, then Windscribe isn’t the one.

Windsribe’s network includes ten servers with reasonably fast speeds. So, if you’re in the Philippines, you can use these offshore server locations to access content that may be unavailable through your local ISP for any reason.

On the security and privacy front, it is perfectly capable of ensuring the security of confidential user information and protecting your privacy if you feel uncomfortable voicing your opinions in the Philippines.

Windscribe is available on all major devices and platforms, including Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, and Android. The AES-256 bit encryption does well to keep your data beyond the reach of interceptors trying to access it.

The only significant issue with this VPN is that it has a 10GB/month bandwidth limit. However, despite this, it is a good freebie to use in the Philippines.

You can learn more about this service in our Windscribe VPN review.

2. ProtonVPN – Completely Free VPN in Philippines

Yet another best free VPN for the Philippines is ProtonVPN. This VPN offers unlimited bandwidth for free, though it has no Philippines servers. Nonetheless, it is a good choice for users who want access to censored social media content or other unavailable websites within the Philippines.

There are three available servers in ProtonVPN’s free plan: Netherlands, US, and Japan. The provider has a satisfactory logging policy and uses strong AES-256 encryption to protect users from unauthorized outside interference. In addition, it is one of the very few VPN services that works with Netflix.

Although the speeds are capped in the free version, so you can’t expect high-quality streams, there’s not much to complain about for a free service that works indefinitely.

However, if you want a free VPN for Netflix in the Philippines with amazing speeds and quality, then you need to know that ProtonVPN offers premium versions that you can test through ProtonVPN’s 7-day free trial. You can compare both versions and will understand how a paid version always stands out.

You can learn more about this service in our ProtonVPN review.

3. Hide.Me – Feature-Rich Free VPN for Filipinos

Hide.Me is an impressive VPN provider that supports torrenting. It ensures a good balance between speed and security, using advanced protocols for encryption and tunnelling.

There are five servers in this VPN network: Singapore, Canada, Netherlands, US East, and US West. Unfortunately, as you can see, there are no nearby servers in the Philippines, which might lead to slower speeds on your end.

Nonetheless, Hide.Me is quite impressive for users that want stronger security. It guarantees zero-logging of important user information such as IP address or information about online activities. That’s not it.

Unlike most free VPNs, Hide.Me offers DNS leak protection and a split tunnelling feature that enables users to choose between the apps they want to use with a VPN and the apps they don’t.

This VPN for the Philippines enforces a 10 GB/month bandwidth limit, which is quite generous considering that free providers offer much smaller data caps. You can use the data limit to stream until it lasts.

It is a trustworthy service that any Filipino can take advantage of if they want to enhance the level of privacy available to them.

You can learn more about this VPN in our Hide.Me review.

4. Speedify – Fastest Free VPN for Philippines

Speedify is a VPN that Filipinos on high-speed requirements can enjoy. It offers a 2 GB of bandwidth limit per month. The VPN performs quite well on mobile devices with fast and smooth functionality but only provides a single connection on its free plan. One good thing about this plan is that it doesn’t require any logins, and you can use it as it is.

However, the provider’s privacy policy isn’t exactly ideal as it keeps some logs relating to users, including their IP addresses. Also, this VPN does not let you stream due to its below-the-par streaming capability. So, if you want a VPN to stream geo-restricted content, then Speedify is not the one.

Nonetheless, if you are travelling to or are a resident of the Philippines and need a high-speed VPN for performing tasks that do not require much bandwidth, such as checking emails, then Speedify is the service you need.

Speedify offers a 30-day money-back guarantee and an easy cancellation process, none of which you’d need on a free plan.

For more information, see this Speedify review.

5. TunnelBear – Excellent Interface in Free App

TunnelBear is a Canada-based VPN provider that can provide impressive security for online users in the Philippines.

This free VPN Philippines is fairly simple to use; you will seldom need to do more than press a click to connect to a server from one of 20+ locations available for free. However, this does not include the Philippines.

TunnelBear is a good choice for Philippines users with very basic and minimal VPN usage requirements because of its low bandwidth limit (500MB/month, expandable to 1.5GB/month if you tweet about it) and the lack of support for torrents.

With a data limitation as low as Tunnelbear’s, you cannot stream anything with the VPN even though you can connect to devices like Fire Stick.

Tunnelbear offers users some security features that aren’t bad at all. It provides users with a no-logging policy, so you never have to worry about having your data leaked with this VPN. Let’s not forget that it also offers an AES 256-bit encryption, keeping you encrypted and secure at all times.

To learn more about this provider, check out our TunnelBear review.

What were our criteria for testing these free VPNs for the Philippines?

Before listing down these VPNs, we had set criteria to test multiple VPNs, out of which we selected these five best free VPNs. So let’s look into what it was:

1. Servers:

We checked the number of servers all of these free VPNs offered and not just listed the ones with the most number of servers, but we also tested each server of these VPNs to check whether they provide the services they boast about or is that all just a word game.

2. Speed:

Every VPN was tested through speed tests to confirm the speeds they offer. In addition, we tried various servers and listed their VPNs that had some decent speed on their servers instead of nothing at all.

3. Bypassing geo-restrictions:

One major reason for using a VPN is its ability to bypass geo-restrictions. If a VPN fails to do that, then that VPN is useless. All free Philippines VPNs listed above could bypass geo-restrictions with or without the ability to stream. You can try unblocking Hulu in the Philippines by using these VPNs.

4. Security features:

Free VPNs easily rat out your personal information. This is why we checked what security features these VPNs offer, including their encryption protocols, zero logs, and more.

Why do you need a free VPN in the Philippines?

The decline of online freedom and the rise of censorship with content manipulation started with the Cybercrime Act 2012. This bill penalizes libel on the internet for up to 12 years in jail. This has led to a decline in online activism due to the criminalization of defamation since the law can always be abused to target otherwise innocent people.

Since then, online activism has declined, probably because users fear they might be deemed guilty of libel for voicing critical views regarding government officials or other authorities.

Recently, the Anti-terrorism Bill was passed, which defines terrorism so loosely that it can virtually be applied to bully and intimidate any person in the Philippines that the government has a beef against. With these developments, self-censorship will only increase, and freedom of speech, especially from sources critical of Duterte’s government, will further dwindle.

The best VPN for the Philippines can hide the identity of a user by routing their traffic through a secure and private tunnel. If you’re strapped for cash, you can opt for high-calibre yet affordable VPN service or free ones, as mentioned above.

With a VPN, authorities will have difficulty identifying users online, giving Filipinos greater security to post content online without fearing untoward repercussions.

An added benefit of VPN services is that they allow access to geo-restricted websites in the Philippines by changing your apparent location to any other country. For instance, if you are travelling to the Philippines from the United States, you might be unable to access the online banking services of your local bank from the US. While we do encourage our readers to opt for premium VPN for the US in this case, the free VPN might work as well.

You might not find too many VPNs with servers in the Philippines, so if you’re trying to find the best free VPN for the Philippines server, then the VPNs listed above might not be the best match for you.

Best Free VPNs for the Philippines: FAQs

Conclusion

The Philippines does not come anywhere close to North Korea and China regarding censorship and lack of freedom of expression online. Nonetheless, with stricter legislation being introduced in the country, the situation could very well change for the worse with greater censorship and is already declining worryingly fast.

In these states of affairs, citizens should take adequate protections for their online safety and, at the very least, opt for one of the best free VPNs for the Philippines listed above.

However, for the ultimate online security, privacy, data protection, and unblocking, we recommend ExpressVPN that comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee.

Also, if you hurry up, you can avail of ExpressVPN’s limited time “12 months + 3 months subscription for free“, which also comes with an authentic 30-day money-back guarantee.

Are you experiencing any privacy or censorship-related problems in the Philippines? We’d love to hear what you have to say. So please voice your thoughts in the comment section below.

Also read:

• Best Free VPN for Windows
• Best Free VPN for Mac