WPF celebrates this landmark decision, while urging the Philippine government to uphold press freedom, drop all pending cases against Rappler and Maria Ressa, and allow independent media to operate without fear of persecution.

WPF stands resolutely against the harrowing threats and acts of violence directed at journalists Joann Manabat and Rowena Quejada in Angeles City, Philippines, on March 12, 2024.

Philippine court ruling clears Rappler CEO and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Maria Ressa of the last tax evasion charge levied against her and the outlet.

It has been an uphill battle for Rappler CEO and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Maria Ressa against the Philippine judicial system and the libel case lodged against her in 2018.

Nobel Peace Prize laureate and journalist Maria Ressa’s independent online news portal Rappler has been ordered shut by the Philippines Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) yet again.

Rappler was threatened with legal action by the state’s National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict, which labeled one of the publication’s articles as “disinformation”.

As Filipino journalist Maria Ressa headed to Oslo to accept the Nobel Peace Prize, a new lawsuit was filed against her news outlet Rappler.

The court decided to drop another libel charge against Maria Ressa. This is the second libel charge against the journalist being dropped in two months. The case concerned the alleged corruption at a leading university - De La Salle-College of Saint Benilde, regarding which the university itself decided to open an investigation. The case was particularly baffling because Ressa herself was neither involved in the research nor in the publication of the piece that made the allegations.