WASHINGTON - Maria Ressa says what she’s living through is Kafkaesque.
The crusading Filipina journalist received a John Aubuchon on Wednesday from the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., the latest international recognition of her years-long fight to defend independent media in the Philippines against the authoritarian President Rodrigo Duterte, who denounces her website Rappler as “fake news.”
Ressa, who was in the Philippines in June on what the Press Club calls “trumped-up charges of cyber-libel,” faces up to six years in prison in that case—and could face nearly 100 years if convicted in all the legal cases against her. She’s appealing her conviction and fighting the charges but lives each day uncertain of her future. Human-rights groups describe Ressa’s case as with implications for democracy worldwide.
"It's meant to scare me,” Ressa, a longtime CNN bureau chief who was a Magazine Person of the Year in 2018, said in an interview with Voice of America. “It's meant to bully me. It's a tool of power.” Yet she sees no way forward except standing up for herself and Rappler’s investigative reporting on those in power, including work critical of the Duterte regime and its violent war on drugs.
“The Duterte administration's actions have placed me in a position where I can't do anything but what I'm doing because my values are very strong," she said. "I helped write the standards and ethics manual of three news organizations. It would be disappointing myself if I didn't live up to these standards. You can't buckle when there is so much at stake.”
Philippine Ambassador to the U.S. Jose Manuel Romualdez told VOA that Ressa's case is a legal dispute between two private parties. “She will always have the right to appeal any court decision before a higher court” as part of due process, Romualdez said in an emailed statement.
Ressa is pushing “” into what she perceives as a dire threat to democracy—social-media platforms like Facebook and Twitter, which she calls “behavior-modification systems” promoting division, disinformation, and conspiracy theories, including in the U.S.
"I think the Philippines is just slightly ahead of the United States,” she said, “and if the technology isn't fixed, we're looking at an abyss. The next few months in the Philippines is an existential moment for us—not just for journalism, but for democracy."
But Ressa’s conviction over the summer was only the latest blow to independent journalism in the Philippines. In May, with citizens in need of information on the coronavirus pandemic, . In July, , which had an estimated weekly audience of 70 million.
Human rights groups saw the move as a particularly egregious crackdown on the press—and specifically on another news outlet that has scrutinized . Human Rights Watch called the shutdown “a grievous assault on press freedom” that “solidifies the tyranny” of Duterte. The Foreign Correspondents Association of the Philippines lamented a “profoundly dark day for journalists.”
Romualdez said ABS-CBN’s shutdown was “not an issue of press freedom, but of legislative franchise renewal dependent on the constitutional prerogatives of the Philippine Congress.”
Throughout his presidency, Duterte has used hostile rhetoric against the press, ” and “spies.” Just because you are a journalist, you are if you are a son of a bitch,” he said after his election in 2016.
It’s a chilling statement in a country where media workers continue to be killed with impunity. The Philippines ranks seventh on the of countries where journalists are slain and their killers go free.
“We live in an environment of violence,” Ressa said.
Ambassador Romualdez said the Philippines holds press freedom and democracy "in high regard," and cited a pair of executive orders Duterte issued on freedom of information and media security. “Our system of government is modeled after that of the U.S., and we hold fast to the same principles on liberty and freedom,” Romualdez added. “That has not changed.”
Duterte has earned praise from U.S. President Donald Trump, who talked of their “” during a joint appearance in Manila in 2017, and laughed as Duterte referred to journalists as “spies.” (Trump has referred to U.S. journalists as the “.”)
"In years past, U.S. policy was enlightened at one time and less enlightened at another, but basically there was a fundamental agreement to stand for freedom of the press around the world,” said Steven Butler, the Asia program coordinator at the Committee to Protect Journalists. “That's no longer been true under the Trump administration.”
In the absence of that leadership, Butler said, governments around the world are learning from Duterte.