“Our American colonizers are practically laughing because they created for us a deranged concept of democracy.”
By what privilege did this director of the Comelec enter into a memorandum of agreement with Rappler, which: a) purports as mass media outlet but owned and funded by a foreign entity; b) whether that foreign media pretending to be local have a permit and have articles of incorporation with the names and citizenship of the stockholders; and c) whether it is allowed to operate as mass media under the Constitution?
Other than the violation, the Securities and Exchange Commission has already declared Rappler as without a license and/or permit to operate. What compounded the violation is by its illegal agreement with Comelec which grants adjudicatory power to implement the rules and regulations of the Comelec, the qualifications of candidates, and the conduct of election which is ultra vires to avowed function on the assumption it has a legal and valid permit to operate.
Rappler has unilaterally taken it upon itself to stubbornly violate the Constitution on the belief the prohibition remains invalid pending the outcome of their appealed case. In other words, Rappler can continue to violate the prohibition while it awaits the decision to allow it to continue to make a travesty and mockery of our fundamental law.
Rappler should know that when the SEC declared its operations here as without permit, they should have refrained from operating as mass media because the Constitution specifically provided this prohibition. Rather, Rappler, through its CEO, Maria Ressa, acted with arrogance, disrespect, and without regard for our dignity as an independent republic. In criminal law, that violation makes it one of mala prohibita because they persist in violating the prohibition. The order by the SEC is more than enough to forewarn the public that Rappler is spreading false and misleading information. Section 11, Article XIV is clear that “The ownership and management of mass media shall be limited to citizens of the Philippines, or to corporations, cooperatives or associations, wholly-owned and managed by such citizens.”
Besides, the contract entered into by Rappler with Comelec constitutes a prohibition on top of the violation of Section 11, Article XIV of the constitution. The SEC decision to close its site cannot be said as a violation of press freedom. What constitutes the truth is and by itself a subjective proposition. Emotionally-charred and exaggerated reporting intended to incite bias, hatred, and emotion cannot be said as objective reportage of events.
Rappler has become a political tabloid designed by foreign owners to promote sensationalism, hatred, and bias against the government. Its style of journalism is far more dangerous because it uses the same tool of press freedom to attack, discredit, insult, ridicule, or put into disrepute our government officials as either corrupt, lazy or bloodthirsty killers. For the fact that they have already instilled to the readers the demagoguery, that Filipinos today are now soaked into the ideology of colonialism and hatred to blindly embrace their bogus principles of freedom and democracy. It is through this channel that most Filipino thinkers have completely lost track of their patriotism and nationalism in exchange for untrammeled freedom. We have lost trust in our country and about the value of freedom in favor of demagoguery flaunted by Rappler.
Our principle about press freedom should originate from our practice of nationalism to make them operable to our people. Only a few of our people claiming to be the disciples of freedom and democracy know that Rappler is owned by an American billionaire named Pierre Omidyar. Even the front woman Omidyar placed to head Rappler, Inc. is of doubtful citizenship. In fact, her sporting dual citizenship was enacted by quisling lawmakers to appease their foreign brokers. In that status, her citizen is for convenience to allow her to operate and manage a mass media in this country akin to that of a mercenary.
One provision of the agreement is the “grant of access to key information and confidential data of registered voters absent of any proper and narrowly focused safeguards on the retrieval, use, and storage of such data.” Earlier, Rappler stated that the Comelec will only be providing embedded codes and not a full list of voters and precincts. This means third-party organizations like Rappler will have access to Comelec’s database. “Collectively, powers granted to Rappler constitute ‘taking part in our influencing in any manner in any election’, the prohibition set forth in Section 81, Article X of the Omnibus Election Code.”
This means that Rappler will involve itself in contentious and justiciable issues which it should not. Issues brought to it in the form of complaint should only be resolved by government functionaries appointed and sworn to perform their duty. To reiterate, officials of the Comelec were entrusted to perform their duty and for which they must be Filipino citizens. But how could this happen when that duty to carry out clean, free, peaceful, and honest electoral exercise was subcontracted to Rappler, an alien and foreign-funded organization believed to be funded by the CIA. There is in the case a consistent violation of the Constitution which can only be performed by a government office.
In fact, the delegation by Comelec of its powers to decide contentious issues is something both the Comelec and Rappler can be held liable. The Comelec should not have allowed Rappler to resolve contentious issues like fact-checking and identification of voters. Remember that any official who will do this cannot only be impeached but can also be held criminally liable, not to mention that any decision by Rappler and its so-called fact-checkers are void ab initio. Worst, the aggrieved party cannot even appeal. Comelec collaterally privatizes the office which it should not. Moreover, the issue of curtailing the freedom of the press has nothing to do with the usual cry of Rappler. In this situation, the right of the state to self-preservation is paramount to the hooting for freedom of press of the people.
Moreover, it is not really about Rappler as foreign-owned but as a front organization known as the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). Many of our so-called civic leaders, professionals, people in the academe, and religious leaders are now under the payroll of NED. In the Philippines, NED operates and manages no less than a dozen organizations like running mass media organizations, helping in the conduct and counting of election results, organizing lawyers’ group to help them thwart attempts to expose their true objective, or creating business associations to promote camaraderie among them, or forming association of church laities to help in the canvassing and counting of votes and the enforcement of their rules and regulation to ensure that their favored candidate of winning or at least to prevent from being cheated.
Reports had it that Rappler receives $150,000 a year from NED which accordingly is the financial arm of the CIA. Front organizations created by NED are fond of creating symbols or colors usually carried through a coup d’ etat. That NED already had its mark in the so-called “colored revolutions” in Georgia, Tunisia, Egypt, Hongkong, and now Ukraine. Fortunately, many of these organizations identified and funded by NED have been banned and classified as subversive or inimical to the security of the state where they once operated as in Russia, China, Cambodia, Myanmar, and in many countries in the Middle East.
The mere identification of a local organization as being operated by a NED and Rappler is more than enough to give the state the authority to prosecute as a foreign spy. Because of our misguided interpretation of freedom and democracy, we glorify these traitors who clothe themselves as media personnel instead. Our American colonizers are practically laughing because they created for us a deranged concept of democracy. They made a monkey on how we should exercise our rights with Rappler and their local operatives standing above the law.