JOURNALIST Maria Ressa, chief executive officer and president of the news website Rappler, was arrested on Wednesday by National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) agents at her offices in Pasig City, sparking protests from media colleagues.
The February 12 arrest warrant, issued by Judge Rainelda Estacio-Montesa of Manila Regional Trial Court Branch 46, ordered the NBI to arrest Ressa and Reynaldo Santos Jr., a former Rappler researcher, for allegedly violating Section 4 of Republic Act 10175 or the Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012.
The warrant stemmed from the revived complaint of businessman Wilfredo Keng over what he had dubbed as a “malicious” story written by Santos and published by Rappler on May 29, 2012.
The Cybercrime Prevention Act, however, did not become law until about four months after the story — which claimed that Keng owned the sport utility vehicle that the late chief justice Renato Corona used during his impeachment trial — was published.
Keng however argues that since Rappler updated the story in 2014, an unlawful act still occurred. Keng also takes issue with the story quoting an intelligence report associating him with human trafficking and illegal drugs, years after it was first posted online.
Revived complaint
The NBI Cybercrime Division initially dismissed Keng’s complaint for lack of basis, but revived it barely a week later.
In a January 10 decision, the Department of Justice (DoJ) recommended that the Manila court indict Ressa and Santos. It dismissed complaints against six others, Rappler officials and editors, named by Keng in the original complaint.
The DoJ resolution came less than two months after it formally charged Ressa and Rappler’s parent, Rappler Holdings, with tax evasion and failure to file tax returns that stemmed from its alleged violation of foreign ownership restrictions on media.
Ressa filed a motion for reconsideration against that ruling, but the Justice department junked it.
Senior Supt. Rizalito Gapas, Pasig chief of police, said Ressa was arrested at about 5 p.m. for a cyber libel charge filed against her last year.
"The NBI has mandate to arrest her that's why they did it. If the warrant was handed to us, we would do the same thing," Gapas told The Manila Times in interview.
Ressa was at Unit B, 3rd floor of the North Wing of Estancia Offices in Pasig’s Capitol Commons development.
Gapas said arresting agents informed the police about the arrest shortly before they entered the news organization's offices.
Miriam Grace Go, Rappler news editor, said several NBI agents in civilian clothes came into Rappler headquarters to serve the warrant.
Rappler reporters said on Twitter that one of the arresting NBI agents tried to stop them from recording the service of the arrest warrant.
Sofia Tomacruz said an agent told Rappler reporters, “We’ll go after you, too.”
‘Persecution’
Ressa’s arrest drew widespread condemnation from press freedom advocates in the Philippines and abroad.
The National Union of Journalists in the Philippines (NUJP) said Ressa’s arrest over a “manipulated” charge was persecution.
“The arrest of Rappler CEO Maria Ressa on the clearly manipulated charge of cyber libel is a shameless act of persecution by a bully government,” the NUJP said in a statement on its Facebook page on Wednesday. “It is clear that the Department of Justice perverted the law by charging Maria for an offense allegedly committed before it actually became an offense under the law.”
“This government, led by a man who has proven averse to criticism and dissent, now proves it will go to ridiculous lengths to forcibly silence a critical media and stifle free expression and thought. It is clear this is part of the administration's obsession to shut Rappler down and intimidate the rest of the independent Philippine media into toeing the lines. It may try its worst but we know it will fail, not for lack of trying but because, as it did during the Marcos dictatorship, independent Filipino journalists will never allow freedom of the press to be suppressed.”
A statement from the Southeast Asian Press Alliance (Seapa) said that Ressa’s arrest belied the pretense of freedom of the press in the Philippines.
“The issuance of the arrest warrant and the entering of charges against Maria Ressa should settle any remaining doubt that President Rodrigo Duterte’s administration will stop at nothing to keep a free and inquisitive media out of its way,” said Seapa executive director Tess Bacalla. “The unrelenting harassment of the social news network, the latest indubitable demonstration of which is its beleaguered founder having just been served a warrant of arrest after office hours, belies all pretense of upholding press freedom by an administration that has from the get-go shown its abhorrence of an independent and critical press.”
Human Rights Watch Asia researcher Carlos Conde said it was a “sad day” for Philippine press freedom.
“This is clearly an attempt by the Duterte government to persecute Maria, with the ultimate aim of shutting down the news website for its coverage of the brutal ‘drug war’ that has killed thousands of Filipinos,” Conde tweeted.
Reporters Without Borders Secretary General Christophe Deloire joined the chorus in condemning the arrest.
“The arrest warrant served against Maria Ressa, most famous journalist in the Philippines, CEO of Rappler, is an obvious violation of press freedom, which should be denounced by all the heads of States and governments which can exercise influence on Rodrigo Duterte,” Deloire said in a tweet. WITH ARIC JOHN SY CUA AND ED VELASCO