Rappler’s Maria Ressa, and one-time Gen.T Stream speaker, gained international recognition for her honest coverage of President Rodrigo Duterte’s authoritarian governance. This year, she became the first-ever Filipino laureate of the Nobel Peace Prize. Watch her moving speech from the awarding ceremony
Maria Ressa continually makes international headlines for her work as an activist and journalist, and now, as the first-ever Filipino Nobel Peace Prize laureate. In 2020, the Rappler co-founder and CEO was charged with cyber libel by the Philippine court—a case that was ultimately dismissed. Years prior, the brazen writer was bombarded with a series of other accusations ranging from tax evasion to securities fraud, and was issued a total of ten arrest warrants in just two years. Now, Ressa is celebrated across the world for another reason—she has just received the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize.
Honoured alongside Russian journalist Dmitry Muratov, Ressa was commended for her “efforts to safeguard freedom of expression, which is a precondition for democracy and lasting peace.” Declares Berit Reiss-Andersen, chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, “Freedom of expression and a free press is prerequisite for a democratic society. Does it abolish war and conflict totally? Probably not. But it is the best defence that a society can put up against war and conflict.”
Although the recognition was publicly announced on October 8, Ressa was prevented from travelling to Oslo to receive the award as she was considered a “flight risk” by the Duterte government. After weighted appeals by the United Nations and several high-profile Philippine lawmakers, Ressa was granted permission to travel to Oslo for five days to attend the awarding ceremony. On December 10, she finally took the stage to receive her Nobel Peace Prize.
See also: How Does Nobel Peace Prize Winner Maria Ressa Overcome Adversity?
Ressa’s devotion to protecting Filipinos’ democratic rights through journalism has been well-documented. She was named Person of the Year and a Guardian in the War on Truth by Time magazine in 2018, saluting Rappler’s chronicling of “the violent drug war and extrajudicial killings of President Rodrigo Duterte.”
The award-winning documentary A Thousand Cuts dives into the continued conflicts between Ressa and the Duterte administration, exposing the disinformation riddled through government campaigns as well as the relentless criticism she faced from the regime and its supporters. The Rappler campaign “Hold The Line” soon became somewhat of a tagline for Ressa herself, symbolising her journalistic integrity to draw the line between good and evil.
“We in Rappler decided we were going to hold the line on good”, the newly-crowned laureate explains. Her upcoming book How to Stand Up to a Dictator is set for release this April 2022 with a foreword by barrister and fellow activist Amal Clooney.
See also: Ian Yee Is Using Journalism To Enact Social Change In Malaysia