After being denied permission to travel abroad to accept a Press Freedom Award at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., on August 24, persecuted Filipina journalist Maria Ressa did this interview with The Progressive via Zoom from Manila.
In 2012, Ressa co-founded Rappler, which the news site’s CEO said “comes from the words ‘rap,’ to talk, and ‘ripple,’ to make waves.” This set the Princeton University graduate and former CNN correspondent—who in 2018 was included, along with murdered Saudi columnist Jamal Kashoggi and other journalists, in Time’s “Person of the Year”—on a collision course with the Philippines’ strongman leader. Ressa is arguably the harshest media critic of President Rodrigo Duterte’s dirty war against drug offenders.
The beleaguered Ressa is the protagonist of Ramona Diaz’s new film A Thousand Cuts, a gripping 110-minute documentary made under extremely dangerous conditions that deserves a Best Documentary Oscar nomination. A film festival favorite, the must-see A Thousand Cuts is scheduled to appear on PBS’s Frontline in January but can currently be viewed via virtual cinema.
Q: What is your current legal situation?
Maria Ressa: There are still eight criminal charges, arrest warrants out for me. All those cases are moving forward. We brought the “cyber libel” case to the court of appeals—[which just] denied my approval to travel. Of course, we’re challenging this . . .
Q: You say in the film the cyber libel law didn’t even exist when the alleged offense took place?
Ressa: Correct. I was convicted along with a former colleague on June 15. It’s really emblematic of how the world gets turned upside down. It’s truly a case of death by a thousand cuts. The offense was a story we published in 2012, four months before the law we allegedly violated was enacted. There was a technicality, we corrected a typo in 2014 and according to Judge Montesa this was the reason why it fell under the cyber libel law.. I had nothing to do with the writing or editing of that story. In order to convict [us] they had to [repeatedly] change the statute of limitations. It’s actually funny—if I wasn’t the target.
You see what they’re doing? All their cases are so difficult to explain. They’re so fake, it’s a maze, and there’s eight of them: Cyber libel, tax evasion, foreign-owned. So, it’s not sedition or rebellion. Because it’s hard to explain court cases, it’s not an easy narrative. That is on purpose by the government.
The information ecosystem, where social media, Facebook, became the world’s largest news distributor, has changed everything and allowed alternative realities to exist.
I continue to fight the cases, because they’re ludicrous, at best. [Laughs.] The kind of legal acrobatics that had to happen to get these cases to court show you. In the end it’s not just me on trial or Rappler, it really is our justice system on trial. I continue to appeal to these judges handling these cases to stick to the spirit of the law at a time when democracy is clearly under attack. To go back to the principles. The Philippine Constitution is very similar to the U.S. [Constitution], we were patterned after the United States. There’s a Bill of Rights—the U.S. Constitution is really the inspiration. Of course, the Philippines is a former U.S. colony . . .
But COVID-19 makes it very difficult, it gives lots of cover for the government. This is our twenty-third week in lockdown—the instances of COVID-19, like in many parts of the world, are increasing exponentially. But what makes the Philippines different is not only is it the longest lockdown in the world, it is also very much security-driven. We have a curfew, from 8 p.m. until morning—if you’re out you will be arrested. A few weeks back, more than 60,000 people had been arrested. COVID has allowed the government to consolidate power during this time period. The largest broadcaster was shut down. A new anti-terror law was passed and signed by President Duterte. Twenty-nine petitions are asking the Supreme Court to declare it unconstitutional.
Q: What is the current situation with extrajudicial killings in the Philippines?
Ressa: The first casualty in our battle for truth is exactly how many people have been killed in this very brutal drug war. The police admit to killing 6,000 to 8,000 people. But they keep changing that number. Human rights activists and others who have looked at the statistics, Sheila Coronel wrote a piece for The Atlantic looking at the data, they put the number at more than three times that. The [United Nations] Commission on Human Rights, as of December 2019, said more than 27,000 people were killed.
I’ll put it in a context that’s very familiar for Americans: These are “alternate realities.” Look at a narrative I know well: “Journalist equals criminal.” This shows you how the virtual world works with power to change reality. In 2016, when President Duterte won, they first seeded that narrative on social media. I laughed. But what they did with Facebook is they pounded that a million times.
On social media, a lie told a million times – especially if it's laced with anger and hate—becomes a “fact.” This is true around the world, it has happened in the U.S., it’s why you create “alternate realities.” People started seeing “journalist equals criminal” pop up on their feeds in 2016, and people started saying, “well, maybe it’s true.” Globally, per person, Filipinos spend the most time on social media and online . . .
Then in 2017 the president himself [said this], it comes top down. So, we’re being attacked bottom up by social media then top down by President Duterte himself. When he said this at a “State of the Nation” address, a week later we got our first subpoena. In 2018, they weaponized the law, with that same narrative: “Journalist equals criminal.” In 2019, I was issued eight arrest warrants, arrested twice in a five-week period. I was in four different courts on four different days. Then in 2020 I’m convicted in the cyber libel case.
“Journalist equals criminal”: It’s not true—but what is truth? That’s your fundamental thing—if you don’t have facts you can’t have democracy. In 2016 the Russian disinformation networks targeted Americans. It’s in the Mueller Report and the 1,000-page bipartisan report just released by the [Senate Intelligence Committee]. How are you going to have integrity in elections if you don’t have integrity of facts?
Q: Is the real “thought crime” you are supposedly committing simply trying to factually, truthfully expose the Duterte regime’s repressiveness?
Ressa: We’re calling out impunity—on two fronts: Of the Duterte administration and also the impunity of Facebook, of Mark Zuckerberg. How the actions and decisions in Silicon Valley are playing out in the Global South, where people are dying. In 2018, a U.N. independent factfinding commission found social media platforms helped in the genocide in Myanmar. Facebook sent its own group there that verified that. Yet, up until today, who has been held accountable? What’s happening to us is happening to you.
Q: In the documentary A Thousand Cuts, you say: “What happens to America happens to the rest of the world . . . Something horrific has already happened. We’re your dystopian future.”
Ressa: We’re the test case for you. The only reason we became targeted was because we’re the “Petri dish.” I’m quoting Cambridge Analytica whistleblower Chris Wiley. I also spoke to Brittany Kaiser. Both said Cambridge Analytica was operating in the Philippines because we spend the most time on social media, we were their Petri dish. Wiley said they practiced tactics of mass manipulation in our country and if it worked here, they ported it to you. So, you’re the target. They tested it here; they brought it to you.
Q: What do you think about Trump and his statements about “fake news,” saying that journalists are “enemies of the people,” and of Kellyanne Conway’s term “alternative facts?”
Ressa: Alternative facts are something we share. It is enabled by a global news distributor—Facebook. Part of the reason these populist authoritarian leaders have gained power is because people in a democracy don’t know what the facts are. That’s built into the design of social media platforms. That’s what Silicon Valley has done—enabled the rise of digital authoritarians.
The information ecosystem, where social media, Facebook, became the world’s largest news distributor, has changed everything and allowed alternative realities to exist. People like Kellyanne Conway brazenly call it “alternative [facts].” When President Trump attacks journalists, that ripples all the way around the world.
Q: In the film you say: “Our two nations share the same kind of leaders. Macho, misogynistic. The politics of hate.” Do you mean then that we not only share social media use but a leaning towards authoritarianism?
Ressa: Yes, it’s a leadership style—of “us against them.” That’s what Duterte, Trump, and other digital authoritarians have in common. They demonize their perceived enemies.