Defiant Filipino Nobel laureate Ressa fights for her freedom

Less than a year after receiving the Nobel Peace Prize for her efforts to protect freedom of expression, Filipino journalist Maria Ressa is fighting to avoid jail while her news site, Rappler, may be shut down.

But the spirited veteran reporter — a vocal critic of former President Rodrigo Duterte and his deadly drug war — will not be silenced.

“This is a newsroom that has been under attack for six years and we have been preparing for it,” Ressa, 58, told AFP this week in Rappler’s suburban Manila office.

“We will not voluntarily give up our rights.”

Rappler, who co-founded Ressa a decade ago, struggled to survive under Duterte as his government accused him of violating constitutional bans on foreign property and tax evasion.

Days before Duterte’s term ended on June 30, the company received a shutdown order from the Philippine Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Less than two weeks later, Ressa lost an appeal against a 2020 cyber defamation conviction, bringing her one step closer to serving up to seven years behind bars.

Drawing on decades of experience as a journalist across Asia, including in conflict zones, Ressa said she had to “be prepared for anything”.

“That’s one of the things I do as a person that I fear the most, I think about the worst-case scenario and then plan for it,” said the former CNN correspondent, who is on bail.

Ressa faces seven lawsuits, including a cyber defamation conviction, while Rappler faces eight.

Her lawyers describe the cases as “state-sponsored legal harassment.”

Trouble for Ressa and Rappler began in 2016, when Duterte came to power and sparked a drug war that has left more than 6,200 people dead in police anti-drug operations, official data shows.

Human rights groups estimate that tens of thousands have been killed.

Rappler was among the domestic and foreign media outlets that published shocking images of the killings and questioned the legal basis of the crackdown.

Local broadcaster ABS-CBN – also critical of Duterte – lost its free-to-air license, while Ressa and Rappler endured what press freedom advocates have described as a grueling series of criminal charges, investigations and online attacks.

Duterte’s government previously said it had nothing to do with the cases against Ressa.

Following the SEC’s shutdown order, Ressa said online harassment had grown “exponentially” and continued since the son and namesake of former Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos succeeded Duterte.

“That was definitely the biggest climb. He didn’t stop, he was pretty much non-stop,” Ressa said.

“The attacks are always combined with a defense of the Marcos administration.”

Ressa became a journalist in 1986, the same year that the elder Marcos was overthrown in a popular uprising and his family exiled to the United States.

Ferdinand Marcos Jr. won the May 9 presidential election in a landslide victory, completing a remarkable comeback for the clan, aided by relentless online glossing over its past and powerful alliances with rival elite families.

Ressa said she was confident Marcos Jr. would rule differently than his father, who presided over human rights abuses, corruption and the shutdown of independent media.

But the pattern of the past three weeks, including attacks on social media, “does not bode well for press freedom and for Filipino journalists,” she said.

“It wasn’t magnanimity in the win,” said Ressa.

“It’s not one or two people who aren’t nice — it’s concerted information operations.”

Some of her colleagues at Rappler, where the average age of staff, including reporters, is around 25, were also targeted.

As Ressa and the company fight to have the SEC and cyber libel decisions overturned, their future is uncertain.

She had hoped winning the Nobel Peace Prize in October, which she shared with Russian journalist Dmitry Muratov, would protect her and other journalists in the Philippines.

While Marcos Jr. has offered few clues as to his views on Rappler and the broader issue of free speech, activists fear he could make matters worse.

Ressa said the outcome of her and Rappler’s cases could have wider implications for Filipinos and their rights.

She points to the controversial cyber defamation law she is accused of violating. It was introduced in 2012 and applied to an article published by Rappler months before the law went into effect.

“It’s all or nothing,” Ressa said.

“What’s at stake goes beyond my freedom or rappler. It will really determine where this country will go.”