Maria's problems do not make up the Philippine story

Out of professional courtesy, I will not go into the situation in other news outlets. But right here in this paper, if you still see my friend, kumpare, and fellow columnist Leo Lastimosa being able to continue criticizing President Rodrigo Duterte almost daily, then it is fair to say that he is living and breathing proof that the press is not under assault in the Philippines as claimed by Maria Ressa.

And in The Philippine STAR, sister paper of The FREEMAN, flagship of the Star Media Group and number one paper in the country, if you can still see Satur Ocampo, Federico Pascual, Jarius Bondoc, and others being able to openly criticize Duterte to a much wider global audience, then they are living and breathing proof as well that the press is not under assault in the Philippines, contrary to the same claims of Maria Ressa.

Then aside from The FREEMAN and The Philippine STAR, there are hundreds of other papers, radio and TV stations and online news portals, as well as millions on social media that continue to go about their business without any intervention from government. But Maria Ressa never reported these to give context to her stories. She dwelt only on her own experience which she brought upon her own self by doing things deemed illegal under Philippine laws.

Admittedly, there had to be extrajudicial killings in Duterte's crackdown on illegal drugs. But the vast majority fell in legitimate police operations. Most of the victims were armed and fought back and thus got killed. But did Maria Ressa even once put context to her stories by citing the unassailable fact that millions of loose firearms are in the hands of criminals? Never. Because doing so would have crushed her ugly stories about the Philippines.

Democracy is alive in the Philippines. The justice system still works. Maria Ressa has her lawyers and has not been deprived her day in court. What extrajudicial cases there may have been, they are in the courts as well. The courts are free, without any interference from Duterte. To claim otherwise is to open up to the same claim Leni Robredo's father, who was appointed judge by Ferdinand Marcos himself, the father.

In my immediately preceding column last Monday, there were two threads of thought that ran through it. One was that the Nobel Committee may have been negligent and careless in appreciating the Maria Ressa story, leading to its controversial decision to give her the Nobel Peace Prize. The other was that the United States, by whatever means, may have had a hand in the award to demonize and punish Duterte for his pivot to China.

Nothing seems impossible for the US, whose clandestine cloak-and-dagger operations can work independently or in tandem with its giant legal and above-ground apparatus to achieve its one consuming aim of promoting and protecting its interests. From propping up to removing leaders (Marcos as prime example), assassinations, dropping atomic bombs on civilian populations, influencing elections (Magsaysay), name it, the US can do it.

Compared to the above, the US can and most certainly would influence the grant of any award or prize if its interests so require, the Nobel included. And it is perfectly possible for Maria Ressa to be played thus by America if it wanted to, the same way it could have used the International Criminal Court as another flank in its multi-pronged attack on the sovereign leader of the Philippines, the price Duterte must pay for playing footsie with China.

How ironic that for incessantly attacking a duly-elected leader, Maria Ressa gets rewarded with a Peace Prize. And how unfair that for interviewing Bongbong Marcos, Toni Gonzaga would be called all sorts of names and chased almost out of social media. And yet some people just cannot tell the difference by likening Maria Ressa's Nobel Prize to Hidilyn Diaz's Olympic Gold. What an insult to the honest, decent and God-fearing Hidilyn.