Editorial
Just three days after the Philippine premiere of “A Thousand Cuts” — a much lauded documentary following Rappler CEO Maria Ressa in a game of cat-and-mouse with the state — Ressa, along with Rappler’s former writer Rey Santos, Jr., received her first conviction for yet another legal case.
Earlier today, the Manila Regional Trial Court Branch 46 found Ressa and Santos guilty of a cyber libel charge filed by businessman Wilfredo Keng. The charge was built on Santos’ article published four months before the enactment of the Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012.
Before the decision was announced, the presiding judge Rainelda Estacio-Montesa wanted the clerk of court, as if anticipating the backlash they will soon get to grips with, to read a note (p. 32–36) on freedom of speech.
The note read in all-caps a sentence stating that “there is no curtailment of the right to freedom of speech and of the press” when “accountability and journalistic responsibility [are] brought to bear.”
Devoid of context, that statement is agreeable. But with the string of attacks against the opposition regarded, that statement along with the verdict it came with are just as contestable as any libelous proclamation. This issue is an attack on the press.
Rappler has been a critical watchdog of the Duterte administration. It chronicled Duterte’s brutal War on Drugs and exposed the authoritarian regime’s propaganda machine on Facebook. Of course, it was bound to receive the ire of the strongman. It is therefore not surprising that Rappler’s staff were facing seven charges in court at the beginning of the year. Ressa alone has been arrested more than once.
It is clear that these charges are politically motivated — most of them, after all, were filed by state agents. Duterte himself has publicly criticized Rappler, even banning one of its reporters from the presidential palace.
The cases against Rappler aren’t just regular activities of law enforcement. They are active attempts of intimidating and persecuting critical journalists.
But not all of Rappler’s cases were filed by the government, such is the situation at hand. And the court hinges on this to bolster the claim that there is no curtailing of press freedom. The decision note stated that the cyber libel charge is “simply a case filed by a private individual.”
And isn’t that right? After all, no government agency in fact was a legal complainant. But even so, this is still not at all a simple case considering that it was supported by the government.
The cyber libel case was originally dismissed by no less than the National Bureau of Investigation that then strangely changed course and recommended to the Department of Justice (DOJ) the filing of a case. The latter then made a resolution stating that Santos’ article was “clearly defamatory.”
The DOJ, whose theories the court took, then argued that cyber libel charges can be filed within 12 years according to Republic Act 3326. This law states that twelve years is the prescription period given for crimes punishable by imprisonment of at least six years. Under the cyber crime law, the court said that cyber libel carries a penalty of a maximum of eight years. So RA 3326 supposedly applies.
However, RA 3326 was enacted in 1926. Republic Act 4661 which was approved in 1966 — thus taking precedence over RA 3326 — clearly states that “the crime of libel or other similar offenses shall prescribe in one year.” So the court said that cyber libel is a “more serious offense than ordinary libel.”
But even if the case is not within the purview of RA 4661, the court will still have to justify that the cyber crime law applies to Santos’ article which was published before that law. And so, the court ruled that the updating of the Santos article in 2014 — which was simply a correction of a typographical error, a misspelling in fact — constituted a republication. Thus, the cyber crime law now supposedly applies.
This court would have us believe that this case is a regular private matter. But the law clearly has been stretched to fit the agenda of the state.
But even with all of that theory-building scheme dismissed from the start, a guilty verdict would have still been disputable.
Firstly, Ressa did not take any part in the reporting, supervising, or editing of the article. So she shouldn’t have been accused in the first place regardless of the authenticity of a libel claim. How does this not make it any more obvious that Ressa and critical journalism are being attacked? Ressa is the face of Rappler and her being charged is a message to all the critics.
And secondly, Santos’ article did not break any normative principles of journalism, let alone contrive “malicious and defamatory imputations.”
The court argued that Santos did not get the side of Keng even though Keng was interviewed and quoted in the article. And while Santos did not reveal the intelligence implicating Keng with murder, human trafficking and drug smuggling, journalists have the right to protect their sources under the Sotto law.
The court also said how Keng was wronged because Rappler did not act on his complaints. The court is reminded that journalists do not make retractions just because somebody doesn’t like an article.
That Keng is the victim and the court was fair are refutable. That press freedom is under attack is not. To say otherwise is libel.
Update (June 15, 11:15 p.m.): The first paragraph was edited to clarify that this is Ressa’s first conviction.
