The Courage of Maria Ressa

Maria Ressa, founder of Philippine news website Rappler, and her former colleague, researcher-writer Reynaldo Santos Jr,  have been found guilty of “cyberlibel” for a story published in 2012 on the Rappler website. The judge released them on bail pending an appeal but, if they lose, they could spend up to seven years in prison.

In the words of the UK and Ireland’s National Union of Journalists, it was a “shamelessly manipulated charge”, and an “act of persecution by a bully government”.

 

 

 

 

Maria Ressa: “We are meant to be a cautionary tale. We are meant to make you afraid,” she said. “Don’t be afraid.”

In stark contrast to the madness of President Rodrigo Duterte, the corruption of Philippine democracy and the complicity of the Philippine judiciary, the courage of Ressa is a shinning light in that darkness.

Wherever you are, if you don’t demand decisions made consistent with reason, common-sense, evidence and fairness, if you don’t demand openness and accountability,  you doom yourself to a hopeless future of ignorance and impotence.

Reclaim hope and the future. Reject the anti-reason, the fast-food thinking that is fed to us to keep us compliant and unquestioning.

Are we now the people of the feed-lot, whose fate is determined by others and their deceptions?

What is happening to democracy in the Philippines –the graft and corruption, the attacks on the rights and freedoms of the people, the obsession with control and manipulation– is occuring, to a greater or lesser extent, in ALL so-called democracies. Fact.