Maria Ressa
has been arrested for a crime – Cyber Libel, by a private individual.
Clearly this
is not a government backed action against her or her media outfit.
Ressa, made
sure she will have her moment in the eyes of the media, where she became an
award winning actress with all the “right” words for her to be perceived as a
prosecuted lone wolf fighting for the freedom of the press- in her world that
is.
Rappler CEO Maria Ressa (photo credit to owner) |
Common, don’t
fool us we know drama when we see one. This is just but one grandstanding just
enough to destroy the image President of the republic which you and Rappler has
been doing for since 2016.
Veteran
journalist Ms. Ninez Cacho-Olivares in her February 15, 2019 column titled “Cut
the dramatics, Maria” in the Daily Tribune really hits the target in all her arguments
against Maria Ressa.
“Oh,
c’mon Maria. Cut the dramatics, please. You are a better journalist to resort
to such fake drama, especially as you certainly know you could not have been
shocked at all, considering the fact that the warrant of arrest for you was
already issued a day before the agents came to arrest you. In fact, I would
wager that even before the warrant was issued, you would have already been
tipped off by other journalists and even court sources of an arrest warrant
against you having been signed by the judge.”
For the consumption of the public and for
purposes of public knowledge, clarity and truthfulness, please see the full
quote of Ms. Ninez Cacho-Olivares below.
Cut the
dramatics, Maria
Opposition forces, along with journalist Maria Ressa,
are hard at work in making sure her arrest — which certainly could have been
avoided easily by Ressa if she wasn’t into making herself look like a
politically persecuted journalist — a dramatic newsworthy event.
Ressa, the Rappler’s chief executive officer, was
arrested inside her news agency’s headquarters in Pasig City on Wednesday over
a cyberlibel case.
National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) agents
conducted the arrest at around 5 p.m., even as the arrest warrant was already
issued by the Manila Regional Trial Court (RTC) Branch 46 a day before, on
Tuesday, 12 February.
It is clear, however, that Ressa and her staff
wanted to make her arrest look like she is again being politically persecuted —
and for the bailable crime of libel which journalists know is part of the
territory.
With the NBI agents ushering her out of her office,
Ressa claimed she was shocked by her sudden arrest.
“It’s a shock, but we are going,” she told
reporters.
Ressa, of course, cries political persecution and
makes it out as yet another try from President Duterte to silence her.
“We are not intimidated. No amount of legal cases,
black propaganda and lies can silence Filipino journalists who continue to hold
the line,” she said.
“These legal acrobatics show how far the government
will go to silence journalists, including the pettiness of forcing me to spend
the night in jail,” she added.
Oh, c’mon Maria. Cut the dramatics, please. You are
a better journalist to resort to such fake drama, especially as you certainly
know you could not have been shocked at all, considering the fact that the
warrant of arrest for you was already issued a day before the agents came to
arrest you. In fact, I would wager that even before the warrant was issued, you
would have already been tipped off by other journalists and even court sources
of an arrest warrant against you having been signed by the judge.
Another Palace move to silence you, Maria? Oh,
puhleez. Spare us the false indignation!
Stop saying the government resorted to legal acrobatics, as well as the “pettiness of forcing” you to spend the night in jail.
That is really going too far, as being a
journalist, you are not sticking to facts just to make it look as if you were
truly being persecuted when you are not.
It was your decision not to voluntarily surrender
and pay bail a day before the arrest. You waited for the law enforcers to come
and arrest you and it was your decision to spend the night at the NBI
headquarters which you call jail.
Government’s way to silence Ressa? What amateurish
drama Maria makes. How can this be taken as a move to silence her when Rappler
is still functioning and she can write as freely as she wants and she is not
being censored?
It was evident that Maria Ressa wanted full media
play and make herself look like a politically persecuted journalist for
attacking President Duterte.
So, why should her arrest on the charge of libel be
treated by opposition forces and some media outfits as a special case, when
other journalists who are charged with multiple counts of libel are hardly even
given any media treatment, mainly because libel is not a novel case filed
against journalists, especially from politicians with onion skins.
Ressa knew of the arrest warrant on 12 February,
and she certainly didn’t have to wait for the next day for the arresting team
to take her. But she waited until the NBI came, because she wanted full
publicity over her libel case and her arrest, even making it appear that there
was no bail so much so that she had to spend the night at the NBI headquarters.
It is fact that she had all the time in the world
to go to the court, voluntarily surrender and post bail which always
accompanies a libel case.
But Ressa or her staff claimed the Rappler CEO was
never given the chance to come up with a motion for reconsideration, since the
Department of Justice (DoJ) never sent her the prosecution’s indictment on her
libel case.
That can be checked out, but the DoJ would be
pretty stupid to do that, especially as prosecutors usually give the indicted
two separate days for the individual to present her side. This can be
questioned by Ressa’s lawyers to get her off the hook.
The best that Maria can do is to get her lawyer to
slug it out with the prosecutor in court. She won’t even get jail time, so
dramatics are useless.
Ressa, who has five cases of tax evasion before the
Court of Tax Appeals and the Pasig City RTC, said she will not be silenced by
any amount of criminal charges.
But nobody is trying to silence her. She is free to
attack Duterte and whoever she wants to attack in her reports. But she should
stick to facts — especially the fact that she is not being persecuted for
political reasons.
Time to stick to facts, Maria.
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