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That\u2019s how a recent Philippine Daily Inquirer<\/em><\/a> editorial characterized the country\u2019s so-called cyber-libel law, making it illegal to falsely malign someone online. Under the headline \u201cDecriminalizing libel,\u201d the piece describes a bill filed by Sen. Risa Hontiveros to repeal several articles of the Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012.<\/p>\n \u201cThe proposed law addresses the government\u2019s latest approach to shutting down the bearers of bad tidings,\u201d the editorial maintains. As evidence, it cites the well-known case of Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Ressa, whose 2020 conviction shows \u201chow libel laws are used against journalists\u201d for, in Hontiveros\u2019 words, \u201cjust doing their job.\u201d<\/p>\n I certainly can\u2019t say that never happens. I\u2019ve only practiced journalism in the Philippines for five years compared to nearly 40 in the US, so it\u2019s possible\u2014perhaps even likely\u2014that certain things have missed my purview.<\/p>\n One thing that hasn\u2019t, however, is the infamous Ressa case, which I closely studied two years ago before writing a column<\/a> on it. By \u201cclosely studied\u201d I mean I simply read the publicly available transcript of the judge\u2019s summary and resulting verdict. For those unfamiliar, here\u2019s a review:<\/p>\n The accusation was that Ressa\u2019s news site, Rappler<\/em>, had published a story\u2014first in 2012 and again in 2014\u2014referring to an unspecified \u201cintelligence report\u201d tying businessman Wilfredo D. Keng to human trafficking, drug smuggling, and murder, all of which he later denied.<\/p>\n During the trial, the prosecution presented seven witnesses, including Keng, who testified that the allegations were false, that business associates seeing them as late as 2018 had then viewed the businessman with prejudice, that Keng\u2019s repeated requests for a retraction or follow-up containing his denials were ignored, and, finally, that he felt \u201chumiliated and defamed\u201d by the resulting damage to his business and personal life.<\/p>\n The defense: that Rappler<\/em> maintains high standards and would never do anything wrong, that Ressa had no direct involvement in the story other than final say on whether to publish it, that Keng\u2019s requested follow-up never appeared due to \u201cmore urgent news,\u201d and that the original 2012 story ran three months prior to the cyber-libel law\u2019s enactment followed by a reposting two years later containing only minor corrections.<\/p>\n Glaringly absent was any testimony regarding the actual veracity of the story itself.<\/p>\n Ok, as I\u2019ve often said, I\u2019m no lawyer, just a lowly reporter. I did, however, learn a few things in Journalism 101 that all journalists\u2014especially one as celebrated as Ressa\u2014should know: 1. You never run a negative news story about someone without giving them a chance to respond; 2. Once a story\u2019s accuracy is questioned, you run it up the flagpole to the higher-ups (in this case, Ressa) to determine whether a retraction is warranted, and; 3. The best\u2014and often only<\/em>\u2014defense against libel is truth.<\/p>\n In my humble opinion, Rappler <\/em>failed on all counts. Or, as I wrote back then, \u201cfrom where I sit\u2026 this conviction looks pretty solid.\u201d<\/p>\n That\u2019s not how most mainstream media saw it, of course. \u201cFilipino American\u2019s conviction is viewed as a severe blow to press freedom\u2026\u201d bellowed my alma mater, the Los Angeles Times<\/em>. Not to be outdone, it\u2019s East Coast counterpart, the New York Times<\/em>, chimed right in with \u201cThe verdict is a new setback for press freedoms in a country where journalists have been bullied and threatened.\u201d And, in a final immaculate touch of irony, Ressa won the 2021 Nobel Prize.<\/p>\n My own inescapable conclusion: that those journalists and the Nobel committee read a different transcript from the one I saw. Or, more likely, no transcript at all.<\/p>\n We can argue all day, of course, regarding verbal subtleties with conflicting legal interpretations. What\u2019s clearly beyond dispute, however, is the overriding result: far from being \u201cstifled\u201d as the Inquirer<\/em> suggests, the crusading Nobel journalist was handed a loudspeaker heard \u2018round the world.<\/p>\n I guess that poor defamed businessman should just have kept his mouth shut.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n CLICK HERE TO SUBSCRIBE<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n __________________________________________________________<\/p>\n David Haldane\u2019s latest book, \u201cA Tooth in My Popsicle and Other Ebullient Essays on Becoming Filipino,\u201d<\/a> will be released this month. A former staff writer for the Los Angeles Times, where he contributed to two Pulitzer Prize-winning stories, Haldane is a prize-winning author, journalist and radio broadcaster with homes in Joshua Tree, California, and Northern Mindanao, Philippines. This column appears weekly in the Mindanao Gold Star Daily<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By David Haldane January 12, 2023 \u201cStifling dissent\u2026 by weaponizing the country\u2019s laws and the courts.\u201d That\u2019s how a recent Philippine Daily Inquirer editorial [\u2026]<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[235,244,25,243],"tags":[3,102,236,167,316],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidshaldane.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88801"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidshaldane.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidshaldane.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidshaldane.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidshaldane.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=88801"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/davidshaldane.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88801\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":88802,"href":"https:\/\/davidshaldane.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88801\/revisions\/88802"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidshaldane.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88801"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidshaldane.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88801"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidshaldane.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88801"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}