President Rodrigo Duterte has branded news portal Rappler as a “fake news outlet” a day after the Securities and Exchange Commission revoked its incorporation papers for allegedly ceding control to foreign investors in an industry exclusively reserved for Filipinos.
“Since you are a fake news outlet, then I am not surprised that your articles are also fake,” the President said as he called Rappler’s attention for a story it ran alleging that Special Assistant to the President Bong Go meddled in discussions for the supplier of the Combat Management System of two Navy ships that will be built by Hyundai.
“You have gone overboard. You are not only throwing the toilet paper, you are throwing shit at us,” the President said.
Duterte said Rappler should not hide behind “the name of the holy grail of press freedom” because the SEC ruling is about a Constitutional violation.
“You were funded by foreign money? Are you not ashamed of that? You had the gall to attack people using foreign money,” he added.
For his part, Presidential Spokesman Harry Roque denied Duterte had a hand in the SEC ruling, adding that the commander-in-chief could have simply sent troops to padlock Rappler’s office if he wanted to shut them down.
Roque said the President “found it unfair” for Rappler to accuse him of threatening press freedom because he had “nothing to do” with the verdict.
“If the President wanted to do that he could just have sent the armed forces to their offices and padlocked them, which has been done by other regimes. The President has never done that,” Roque said.
In what media watchdogs saw as an attack on press freedom, the SEC on Monday revoked the incorporation papers for Rappler.
Rappler, founded in 2012, has produced reports critical of Duterte’s government, including its centerpiece drug war that has claimed thousands of lives and which has drawn criticism of alleged extrajudicial killings.
Solicitor General Jose Calida on Tuesday said the Palace was not involved in his request to the SEC to investigate Rappler.
“Definitely not. I do things on my own. I do not take orders from anyone,” Calida said when asked by reporters if the Palace had a hand in the move.
Nonetheless, Calida defended the SEC decision, saying the agency was just following the “rule of law.”
“If you engage in the business of mass media you have to comply with the constitutional and statutory regulations because no one is above the law, even a powerful media [company]. This is about the rule of law,” Calida said.
“If you read the SEC decision, it’s not just ownership but control. There must be no control, not even one percent. It should be zero percent,” he added.
Calida said he asked the SEC in December 2016 to probe Rappler after reading newspaper articles that disclosed that two American companies, Omidyar Network Inc. and North Base Media, in 2015 “made substantial investments” in Rappler.
Duterte vowed last year to expose Rappler’s “American ownership,” while suggesting the US Central Intelligence Agency funded the outfit.
The government doubled down on the ruling Tuesday, with the Justice Department saying it was studying whether Rappler should now be prosecuted.
“If a law has been violated, then we will file the necessary charges,” Justice Undersecretary Erickson Balmes said.
The case concerns Rappler Holdings’ decision to issue Philippine depositary receipts (PDRs) for shares of Rappler Inc. that the government said were sold to foreign companies.
In Monday’s ruling, the SEC said Rappler had given a foreign fund veto powers in exchange for a 2015 investment in an industry that the Constitution limits to Filipino entities.
Rappler maintains the securities did not constitute equity nor that it had given the investors veto on editorial matters and has vowed to appeal the ruling.
Rights groups and media watchdogs have condemned the move as the latest salvo in a series of attacks on critical media.
“The order to close Rappler amounts to a direct assault on freedom of the press in the Philippines,” Steven Butler, Asia program coordinator for US-based monitor Committee to Protect Journalists, said.
Duterte has also publicly attacked other media outlets including the Philippine Daily Inquirer and leading television broadcaster ABS-CBN, whose application for a franchise renewal he threatened to block.
The SEC said the verdict would take effect in two weeks, while Rappler announced it would continue operating while appealing the ruling in court.
“I will do everything in my power not to let Rappler go down,” Rappler chief executive Maria Ressa told CNN Philippines on Tuesday.
Press organizations in Hong Kong, Thailand and the Philippines all released statements urging the government to reverse the ruling.
“The order for Rappler to be shut down is part of a broader trend by Duterte to silence his critics,” Hong Kong’s Foreign Correspondents Club said in a statement.
Roque continued to deny that the SEC decision was an attack on press freedom, but said it is up to the Justice Department to determine if there was a legal basis to file charges against Rappler.
Violations of the Anti-Dummy Law are penalized by 5 to 15 years imprisonment.
“We would like to deny… that the state has infringed on freedom of the press of Rappler or any of its reporters,” said Roque, who noted the presence of the portal’s reporter Pia Ranada during the regular Palace news briefing.
Roque insisted that none of the journalists were prevented from exercising their profession, but the news portal will have to shut down.
“Rappler the company will be closed, but the journalists are not being prevented from practicing their profession,” Roque, a former human rights lawyer, said in Filipino. “So there is no violation of their press freedom.”
Ressa, a former bureau chief for CNN, claimed that there was someone who was “running after the SEC on a daily basis for a decision that is adverse to Rappler.”
“What we know is that this is political and if it wasn’t this, it would be something else. There is a strong move to shut down Rappler,” she said in a CNN Philippines interview.
If the administration didn’t have a hand in the unfavorable ruling against them, why would the Office of the Solicitor General (OSG) — the government’s top lawyer–be the one to question Rappler’s ownership, Ressa said.
“I have stated that this is about political pressure, and that we’ve been told in the same way that the SEC decision actually put on the record that it was the Office of the Solicitor General [behind the move],” she said.
Despite being highly critical against Duterte, Ressa said that the news organization was “not against the government” and the role of the press in a democratic society is to “help the government come up with the right decisions.”
“Although it is publicly questioned, it could be seen as criticism by thin-skinned people, in the end, that is how it works,” she said.
She added that it would be business as usual as they contest the decision.
In a decision dated Jan. 11, 2018, posted on its website and emailed to reporters on Monday, the SEC revoked the certificate of Rappler Inc. and its parent company, Rappler Holdings Corp. for supposedly failing to comply with Philippine laws.
Rappler allegedly violated constitutional restrictions on ownership and control of mass media entities, due to funding coming from Omidyar Network, a fund created by eBay founder and entrepreneur Pierre Omidyar, the SEC said.
The move comes after a Dec. 14, 2016 complaint letter by the Office of the Solicitor General, urging the SEC to investigate the two companies “for any possible contravention of the strict requirements of the 1987 Constitution.”
Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II said his office has started a review of the SEC decision.
“I have directed my staff to study the legal issues in this case,” Aguirre said.
The SEC on Tuesday said its decision to revoke Rappler’s incorporation papers would stand, even if it corrected the “repugnant” provisions that the regulator said gave foreigners control over the company.
SEC spokesperson Armando Pan Jr. said Rappler has many options, including issuing new PDRs to cure the unconstitutional provision, but the decision stands.
Pan said Rappler can still appeal the SEC decision with the Court of Appeals within the next 15 days.
International and local groups condemned the move to stifle the online-only news site, with the Committee to Protect Journalists calling it a “direct assault on freedom of the press,” and rights group Amnesty International saying it was “an alarming attempt to silence independent journalism.”
Human Rights Watch alleged that it was the President who was attempting to stifle Rappler, and issued a warning for the free press in the country.
“If Duterte succeeds in silencing Rappler, it will have a profound chilling effect on Philippine media freedom, encouraging self-censorship by reporters and media outlets fearful of government reprisals for critical reporting at a time when the watchdog role of a free press is more urgently needed than ever,” its statement said.
Amnesty International called on the SEC to “immediately reverse this decision and end all efforts to stifle free press in the country.”
James Gomez, Amnesty International’s director of Southeast Asia and the Pacific, said the move to revoke the registration of news organization Rappler “an alarming attempt to silence independent journalism.”
“The Philippine government should focus on ending and investigating violations, mostly against poor communities, in the ‘war on drugs,’ not trying to silence the messenger.”
After more than a year, the SEC ruled on Jan. 11 that Rappler violated the constitutional provision against foreign ownership in mass media when it welcomed Omidyar Network of eBay founder Pierre Omidyar as an investor.
The corporate regulator said Rappler also issued derivatives to North Base Media in 2015 but these derivatives did not carry the same terms as those of Omidyar.
“Because Omidyar was the later purchaser … it caused the insertion of certain provisions that assure control over other PDR Holders, and also over the corporate policies of Rappler Inc. and its alter ego Rappler Holdings Corporation,” the SEC ruled.
Rappler assailed the decision as harassment. With AFP