BY RUFO OSORIO
Monday, October 11, 2021
In June, a court in Manila convicted CEO Maria Ressa of the news website Rappler of cyber libel, along with Reynaldo Santos Jr., a former Rappler researcher. The case involved the retroactive application of the new law to an article that had been published years earlier.
The case is one of several that Ressa and Rappler face as part of the government's campaign of retaliation against media organizations for their reporting on "drug war" killings and the Duterte presidency. Since 2016, the president and his supporters on social media have subject Ressa and Rappler to threats and harassment, including misogynistic attacks online.
In July, the Philippine Congress, in which Duterte controls a large majority, voted not to extend the franchise of ABS-CBN, the country's largest television network. The vote led to the shutdown of ABS-CBN. ABS-CBN earned the ire of Duterte and his officials who accused the network, which often criticized the government's "war on drugs," of bias.
The killing of journalists also continued with the murder of radio broadcaster and online commentator Jobert Bercasio on September 14. Bercasio was the 17th journalist killed during Duterte's term in office and the 189th since democracy was restored in the Philippines in 1986. In December 2019, a Manila court convicted two of the masterminds and several dozen accomplices for the 2009 Maguindanao Massacre in which a local ruling family murdered 58 people, including 32 media workers covering a political campaign. However, nearly 80 suspects remain at large, with little prospect of them being apprehended.
Kommentare