TWO “QUEENS”, not ironically, are taking the misogynist Duterte government by the horns, specifically on some of the major issues confronting this nation. One took a crown in an international beauty pageant held in Bangkok late last year. The other set up Rappler, the biggest on-line news network of the country. There is Catriona Gray, and there is Maria Ressa. Both women chose not to kowtow and are colliding forces with the male powers of Malacañang.
Miss Universe 2018 Catriona Gray’s official triumphant homecoming was no surprise. She, after all, bested with 94 contestants across the world, the universe rather, in a competition that most Filipinos are fanatics about. As expected, when she reached the Philippine shores Ms. Gray had to face the hungry Philippine mass media all wanting to know more about her winning lava walk, her glorious red gown, her brilliant wit, or any other concern worth throwing her way.
When asked about the lowering of age of criminal liability from 15 to 12 years old, Ms. Gray was quick on the draw. She is not in favor. Ms. Gray’s suggestion, borne out of her exposure to and advocacy for marginalized communities, is for the government to focus and address the reasons why children commit crimes, than squabble on the simplistic age dilemma. Moreover, she suggested that parents, communities and the people surrounding the child should be educated to provide appropriate interventions. Branding the child as criminals will not solve the problem why young children are committing crimes. What this nation needs to do is provide each child, every child, and most importantly all children in conflict with the law, the “chance to change”. We knew, given what we are seeing and hearing that this Miss Universe does not only swagger glamour and physical beauty but definitely has more meaningful punches up her sleeve.
Salvador Panelo, the Palace spokesman immediately branded the child-welfareadvocate beauty queen as “misinformed” of the facts about children, adding that Ms. Gray is simply regurgitating the position of the opposition and old critics of the administration. This, after Ms. Gray was praised by Panelo in an earlier encounter as showcasing the qualities defining a Filipina: confidence, grace, intelligence, and strength in the face of tough challenges. After the differing exchange of words between the beauty and the beast, so to speak, we know that this government will not spare any diverging opinions even to an unlikely and seemingly harmless adversary.
But the beauty queen is not about to back out. She instead went out of her way and met with the country’s woman vice president Leni Robredo. She found solace and similar advocacy for young people with the second highest executive of the land. VP Robredo, on the other hand, did not hold praises to Ms. Gray and described the Bicolana beauty as representing “the best of the Filipino”.
Then, there is Maria Ressa, the CEO of Rappler. On March 29, she arrived at the Aquino International Airport, not with accolades fit for someone who already received the 2018 Time Magazine’s Person of the Year and half a dozen international awards in journalism, but with two police officers carrying a warrant of arrest on an alleged violation of the antidummy law. According to Ms. Ressa, the charge has been the 7th active case against her and the 11th case, overall against the director and staff of Rappler since January 2018 when the Securities and Exchange Commission attempted to shut Rappler down.
Unlike the beauty queen, Ms. Ressa is colliding with the Duterte not with an issue but with the issues confronting the Duterte leadership: corruption, human rights violations, China debt trap diplomacy, press freedom, and especially the bloody extra judicial killings, among others. Ms. Ressa and Rappler’s analyses of the 2016 national election that catapulted Duterte to the presidency is critical, cutting and exacting. While receiving her international awards she was busy doing lectures, unmasking the “weaponization” of technology during, and most importantly, after the 2016 presidential election.
Ressa and her Rappler team were able to methodically trace and root out the 26 fake accounts that influenced three million other accounts deployed by the Duterte camp. The notorious accounts have the vicious intent of unleashing hate messages to anyone who disagrees with Duterte and his minions. Ressa herself was not immune to the cyber-attacks as she recounted that she received 90 hate messages per hour in her battle with the Duterte cyber troll armies.
The methodical and rock science unmasking of the vicious cyber accounts, and the eventual equally methodical analyses, is according to Ressa and her Rappler team the first in the Philippines, in fact, the first in the world. This “first”, accordingly, was carried out by Ms. Ressa and her own Rappler army, so to speak, of young, critical, uncompromising, and fearless journalists, who not ironically, are mostly women.
However, the methodical and critical analyses that would finally hit the Duterte nerve was not this efficient first. When Ms. Ressa and her Rappler team zeroed in on the extra judicial killings and provided the mostly young on-line readers with one of the most efficient and accurate EJK reporting and analyses, the Duterte government could not simply ignore this new upstart. Duterte and his minions lost no time in branding Ms. Ressa and her Rappler team as fake news, and no Rappler journalists were allowed to cover Malacañang. The file charges descended on Ms. Ressa and her Rappler team. Ironically, the Duterte government does not call the heaps of criminal charge as political harassment to silence Ms. Ressa and her Rappler team. The Malacañang army, so to speak, insists that they are just doing their job.
However, Ms. Ressa and her Rappler team are not in the mood to trade metaphors. Their analysis of the Duterte government’s criminal charges against them is firm, unapologetic and sharp: abuse of power and the weaponization of the rule of law. More importantly, Ms. Ressa and her Rappler team warn us of the chipping away of the fabric of democracy and the slow path towards authoritarianism of our country. Just recently, the former Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno called Maria Ressa a “symbol of hope”.
But, make no mistake. The Duterte government versus Gray/Ressa is not only a clash of personality and opinions. What is unfolding before our very eyes is a war on our fundamental values as human beings: between impunity and accountability, between lies and truth, between inhuman and humane, between violence and non-violence, between authoritarianism and democracy, and ultimately between cynicism and hope. Yes Marcus, in this clash of values, we will have to decide which side are we in.
