‘She just keeps on going’: Duterte critic Maria Ressa’s fight for press freedom

Photo by Himanshu Pandey on Unsplash.

“Journalism is a dangerous job in the Philippines: according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, 86 reporters have been killed in the Philippines since 1992, nine of them during Duterte’s term. Others have been shot at, bashed, and harassed. The campaign to dehumanise Ressa has assaulted her dignity. (‘My skin was probably the most vulnerable part,’ she says.) But it has also made her a prominent target: there have been calls to have her beheaded and gang-raped. She sometimes wears a bulletproof vest, and often travels with a security detail. The Rappler office has also been subjected to bomb threats. Ressa says she and her staff have ‘workflowed’ the response should the office be attacked, but she doesn’t like talking too much about security: ‘I don’t discuss safety measures because the minute you do, you’re not as safe.’”

Read the full article in the Sydney Morning Herald.