MANILA (SE): Maria Ressa, Nobel laureate and head of the Rappler online news site, was acquitted on September 12 of a fifth and final tax evasion charge by a court in the city of Pasig, Metro Manila. The previous four were dismissed in January by the Philippine Court of Tax Appeals [Sunday Examiner, January 29]
The 59-year-old told media, that the court’s decision “strengthens our resolve to continue with the justice system, to submit ourselves to the court despite the political harassment, despite the attacks on press freedom—it shows that the court system works.”
“I think we’ve seen the transition from the last administration to this administration is the lifting of fear…. I hope it isn’t the calm before the storm,” CNN Philippines quoted her as saying.
Ressa, who snagged a Nobel Peace Prize in 2021, has been fighting multiple charges filed during the administration of former president, Rodrigo Duterte, and still faces two cases. However, she continues to maintain that the charges against her and Rappler, are politically motivated.
“You gotta have faith,” a visibly relieved Ressa told.
“This is a victory not just for Rappler but for everyone who has kept the faith that a free and responsible press empowers communities and strengthens democracy,” Rappler said in a statement on September 12.
“We share this with our colleagues in the industry who have been besieged by relentless online attacks, unjust arrests and detentions, and red-tagging that have resulted in physical harm. We share this with Filipinos doing business for social good but who, like us, have suffered at the hands of oppressive governments,” the news outlet added.
This is a victory not just for Rappler but for everyone who has kept the faith that a free and responsible press empowers communities and strengthens democracy
Rappler
Appeals on a cyber libel conviction is still pending before the Supreme Court as is an appeal on the closure of Rappler pending at the Court of Appeals.
Despite the remaining hurdles, UCAN reported that Ressa was characteristically defiant and optimistic on Tuesday, telling reporters the latest acquittal “strengthens our resolve to continue with the justice system. It shows that the court system works and we hope to see the remaining charges dismissed.”
Trouble for Ressa and Rappler began in 2016, when Duterte came to power and launched a drug war in which more than 6,200 people were killed in police anti-narcotics operations, official data shows.
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Rappler was among the domestic and foreign media outlets that published shocking images of the killings and questioned the crackdown’s legal basis.
Broadcaster, ABS-CBN, which was also critical of Duterte, lost its free-to-air license, while Ressa and Rappler endured what press freedom advocates say was a grinding series of criminal charges, probes and online attacks. Duterte’s government claimed it had nothing to do with any of the cases against Ressa.
Another high-profile Duterte critic, human rights campaigner Leila de Lima, has spent more than six years in jail on drug trafficking charges she said were fabricated to silence her, UCAN reported.
Throughout the campaign against her, Ressa, who is also a US citizen, has remained based in the Philippines.
