The spotlight now is on Rappler CEO Maria Ressa.
Last week she was arrested when a warrant of arrest was served upon her
person from a Cyber libel complaint filed by a private person.
As if on queue, she took upon herself to make that time an opportunity to
portray herself a victim of oppression of the current administration that her
Constitutionally protected right – “freedom of the Press” is being curtailed.
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| Maria Ressa who enjoys attacking the Duterte and his administration turns out to be an American citizen (photo Credit to owner) |
All of these have been masterfully done by Ressa, that is why
international media outfits were so fast to condemned the Duterte
administration a vast contrast from the time when another journalist was
murdered (brutally?) in Saudi Arabia and yet no nothing even a simple howl or
whimper about it.
Mr. Rigoberto Tiglao,
himself a well respected and distinguished veteran journalist and former
ambassador in his February 18, 2019 published article in The Manila Times
titled “Maria Ressa is an
American, bashing the Philippines salvaged her distressed career” sets into account the mere fact thet Maria Ressa
enjoys the rights and privileges of an American citizen in a foreign country.
” RAPPLER
CEO and editor in chief Maria Angelita Aycardo Ressa is an American citizen,
who of course uses US passports that identify her nationality. She has been
deliberately, yet cleverly, hiding this fact.”
For purposes of public knowledge and for reasons of being clear and
truthful, we are quoting in full the said
“Maria Ressa is an American, bashing the Philippines salvaged her distressed career”
Part 1
RAPPLER CEO and editor in chief Maria
Angelita Aycardo Ressa is an American citizen, who of course uses US passports
that identify her nationality. She has been deliberately, yet cleverly, hiding
this fact.
So have US media which rushed in,
believing her lies against the Duterte administration, either because of their
journalistic laziness or perhaps after all, proud that an American is lecturing
this Third World country somewhere in the Pacific on press freedom and is being
persecuted for it.
No wonder that American press
institutions that want to impose their beliefs on Third World nations have
showered Ressa with awards that a “brave Filipina” is fighting for press
freedom in this country with a spineless local press.
It is so disgusting that Vice President
Leni Robredo, Yellow senators like Risa Hontiveros, Church officials, and even
academic institutions like the Ateneo and La Salle gave the benefit of the
doubt to an American rather than to Filipinos patriotically serving the country
like Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra, who ordered Ressa to be charged with
cyber-libel, and Judge Reinalda Estacio-Montesa, who issued the arrest warrant
against her.
Guevarra is such a respected legal
eagle that Duterte appointed him to his post, even if he was formerly former
President Aquino 3rd’s deputy executive secretary. Estascio-Montesa on the
other hand is the country’s foremost expert in the novel field of cyber-crime,
and was our sole representative in the European Union’s Global Action on
Cybercrime. Her independence and integrity are obvious in that she was first
appointed as trial court judge by Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo in 2006 and then by
Benigno Aquino 3rd as regional trial court judge in 2012.
Are these the type of people whom
President Duterte can tell what to do, to “weaponize” – Ressa’s term – our
laws?
US embassy
Right after Ressa was arrested, the
US embassy issued a statement — a rare one, her media outfit Rappler itself
reported — which said: “We hope the charge against journalist and Rappler CEO
Maria Ressa will be resolved quickly in accordance with relevant Philippine law
and international standards of due process.”
The statement was not due to US
concerns over a purported attack on the press, as Rappler implied. It was
simply because Ressa is a US citizen, and US embassies are required to publicly
express concern over a high-profile citizen being arrested and charged in local
courts.
If Ressa had to spend more than a day
in detention, we would have seen a US embassy officer visit her to check on her
situation, as is standard operating procedure for American embassies.
Going by the success of Ressa in
spreading lies around the world, the framers of our Constitution were men of
foresight when they put in our nation’s basic law: “The ownership and
management of mass media shall be limited to citizens of the Philippines, or to
corporations, cooperatives or associations, wholly owned and managed by such citizens.”
Oath of US allegiance
Ressa became a US citizen shortly
after her family migrated to the US in 1973, and swore the oath of allegiance
required of naturalized Americans, the very first sentence of which declares:
“I hereby declare, on oath, that I
absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any
foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty, of whom or which I have
heretofore been a subject or citizen.”
No wonder Ressa has no qualms about
lying to the world that the Philippine president is a dictator and is attacking
the press. She just isn’t a Filipino, in the deeper meaning of the term.
While she acquired Philippine
citizenship in 2004 under the country’s “dual citizenship law,” this has been
only for convenience, for her to own property in the country. There is no oath
similar to the US oath of allegiance (to “abjure” allegiance to one’s former
country) in such re-acquisition of Filipino citizenship by a former Filipino.
Dual citizenship proved to be a huge
advantage for Ressa as she claimed to be a Filipino in becoming a major
stockholder of Rappler (and later Rappler Holdings), a firm in media, an
industry where foreigners are totally banned from both investing in or
managing.
So unlike Poe
Talk of “transparency” Ressa
incessantly says this country needs: She has never disclosed to the Securities
and Exchange Commission nor anywhere else that she swore to “absolutely and
entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to” the Philippines.
This is so unlike Sen. Grace Poe, who renounced her US citizenship to run for
office in the country of her birth.
Ressa considers herself an American,
and has been ashamed to claim to be identified as a Filipino when traveling
abroad. Except once when she tried out her new Philippine passport issued under
the dual citizenship law in 2004, Ressa has always used her US passports, four
so far since the first was issued in the 1970s (US passports have 10-year
validities).
She used her US passports in all of
her 350 arrivals and departures in the Philippines in the past 14 years. With
such frequency of travel, leaving the country almost every month, either Ressa
has a secret job as international correspondent, spy – or so homesick of
America she visits it so often. (I wonder if she charged her trips to Rappler.)
No wonder Ressa is so bold in
spreading lies against Duterte. Behind her to defend her is the most powerful
nation on earth. If ever Ressa is convicted of the crimes she is charged of and
ordered jailed, she could just flee to the US.
Despite the Philippines’ extradition
treaty with the US, the imperial power has had a track record of refusing to
extradite its citizens hunted by police authorities or convicted by courts for
some crime. This happened for instance even in the face of public outrage, as
in the case of American Rod Strunk, the prime suspect in the murder of his wife
Nida Blanca in 2001, whom the US has refused to extradite to the Philippines
despite the charges against him.
Hid nationality
US media foundations which showered
Ressa with so much praise as a courageous fighter for press freedom struggled
to hide her nationality.
For example, the Committee to Protect
Journalists announced that its 2018 “International Press Freedom Awards go to a
Vietnamese blogger, Venezuelan reporter, Ukrainian broadcaster, a Sudanese
freelancer, a Cameroonian radio correspondent, and a Tibetan documentary
filmmaker.”
How did it refer to Ressa who was
given Columbia University’s Gwen Ifill Press Freedom Award?
Just as “Rappler editor,” without
identifying her nationality. The Columbia University functionary, Sheila
Coronel, who lobbied for Ressa’s award, and who prides herself on being a
top-notch investigative journalist, portrayed Ressa as a Filipina, that she
“was born in the Philippines, migrated with her family to the US, and then
returned to Manila in the 1980s.” She omitted to mention what would have been a
significant information: That she assumed American citizenship in the 1970s and
never gave it up.
Ressa though is not a rare creature
in this sorry country. Not a few Filipinos who abandoned their country by
becoming US citizens or to work abroad (even to purportedly teach investigative
journalism in an Ivy League school) delight in bashing the country, without
even doing research to verify information spewed in such publications as
Rappler.
What’s happened to our country? Why
do we allow an American to run a company in an industry totally reserved for
Filipinos? Why do we allow this American to tell lies to the world that press
freedom is under attack in this country, and that only she and her Rappler are
bold enough to oppose a dictator? Why are so many among our political and
intellectual elite so gullible to believe an American’s lies against this
country and its government?
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Report from Manila Times
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