50. A deserved win, but more challenges ahead
After Rappler acquittal, journalists come to court for two other cases
Welcome back to Slow News Days, a now-and-then newsletter on journalism and journalism-adjacent topics in the Philippines.
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This month saw a court win for Rappler and Maria Ressa in the tax evasion case against them by the Bureau of Internal Revenue even while the company “had not submitted to the BIR any documents for assessment and investigation.”
The acquittal has been hailed as a win for justice, truth and facts. “This is the first time justice wins,” Ressa says in an Al Jazeera report.
A week later, other journalists and newsrooms targeted by the Duterte administration were hopeful for similar wins as they prepare to go to court.
Last Monday, a Tacloban court began trial on a terrorist financing case against Frenchie Mae Cumpio, a broadcaster and community journalist who has been in custody since 2020 for terrorism-related charges based on sketchy warrants and unreliable witnesses.
The terrorist financing case is over money that was seized in a raid and that Cumpio says was meant for a local radio show. The government has already confiscated the money, in a decision that she is appealing because she was not able to present evidence in her defense.
The day after that, representatives of alternative news site Bulatlat submitted its pre-trial brief on their pleading questioning a government order to block their website for allegedly being affiliated with and supporting the Communist Party of the Philippines and the New People’s Army.
WHAT BULATLAT ACTUALLY REPORTS: Travels and travails of women migrant workers
Bulatlat argues that the National Telecommunications Commission had no power to order the blocking, which the government did without informing the website’s publishers or giving them a chance to defend themselves.
Bulatlat said the block order, which has been suspended by a Quezon City court, “constitutes violations of its constitutional rights.”
The Court of Tax Appeals’ acquittal of Ressa and of Rappler is definitely a win, and one that the community can celebrate, but the legal challenges faced by Cumpio and Bulatlat — and by many other journalists, including Frank Cimatu who is appealing a libel conviction over a Facebook post — are a reminder that we can be neither complacent nor insular in facing these threats.
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Meanwhile, journalists in the Philippine still face the risk of being killed even after a change in presidents and a shift — at least in words and on paper — in attitudes towards the media, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.
Journalists — like many digital workers — are also still underpaid and overworked and, according to a unified Labor Agenda prepared by dozens of labor unions and workers’ associations should have grievance mechanisms and a chance to participate "in decision-making on matters that affect [our] working lives."
Elsewhere in coalition-building and consolidation of power, another of the president’s sons has a new role at the House of Representatives. Vincent Marcos is now a special assistant to Speaker Martin Romualdez, his father’s cousin.
Marcos met with the House minority bloc last week as part of his “internship”, likely in preparation for politics. His elder brother, Senior Deputy Majority Leader Ferdinand Alexander Marcos was also previously part of Romualdez’s staff.
The Maharlika Investment Fund, which the president wants passed and has already been approved by the House, is now at the Senate.
The Senate bill filed by Sen. Mark Villar does not have tweaks that Rep. Joey Salceda (Albay) said he had been tasked to do. At any rate, those tweaks seem to be part of a bigger and still ongoing discussion on what the fund will eventually look like.
The government is now looking at selling off state assets for cash to put into the investment fund, according to Finance Secretary Benjamin Diokno.