Nobel Prize-Winning Journalist Maria Ressa Acquitted of Tax Evasion in Philippines

Philippine journalist and Nobel laureate Maria Ressa speaks during an interview with AFP in Manila on September 12, 2023. (JAM STA ROSA/AFP via Getty Images)

September 14, 2023

Kaela Malig

Nobel Prize-winning Filipina journalist Maria Ressa and her Philippine independent news site, Rappler, were acquitted of tax evasion charges on Tuesday, ending an almost five-year legal battle in court.

Press freedom advocates and media organizations welcomed the acquittal and celebrated it as a victory for press freedom in the Philippines. The organizations said the case had been part of a raft of legal challenges “designed to debilitate” Ressa and her news site over the past five years. According to Rappler, with the resolution of this tax evasion case, Ressa and Rappler still face two active cases related to cyber libel and foreign ownership.

Ressa, who received the Nobel Peace Prize in late 2021, was the central figure in the 2021 FRONTLINE documentary A Thousand Cuts. Produced by Ramona S. Diaz, the film showed how Ressa became a prominent target of then-Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s crackdown on the press and how she faced legal challenges and online threats and harassment, especially after her news site investigated Duterte’s bloody drug war and examined the spread of pro-Duterte disinformation.

“What we’re seeing is death by a thousand cuts of our democracy,” Ressa said in the documentary. “When you have enough of these cuts, you are so weakened that you will die.”

In the documentary, Ressa vowed to carry on despite the legal cases against her and Rappler: “We will not duck; we will not hide. We will hold the line.”

According to the regional trial court’s ruling on Sept. 12, Ressa did not violate the country’s tax code. She and Rappler Holdings Corporation had been charged in connection with an alleged failure to declare information of a 2015 sale of depositary receipts to American firms North Base Media and Omidyar Network.

The case, which was filed in November 2018, was the fifth tax evasion charge filed against Ressa under the Duterte administration, according to Rappler. Ressa was cleared of four tax-related charges back in January. If she had lost the most recent case, she could have faced a potential prison sentence of up to 10 years, while Rappler would have been fined.

The court’s decision “strengthens our resolve to continue with the justice system, to submit ourselves to the court despite the political harassment, despite the attacks on press freedom,” Ressa said after the acquittal, according to NPR. “It shows that the court system works and we hope to see the remaining charges dismissed.”

“This is a victory not just for Rappler but for everyone who has kept the faith that a free and responsible press empowers communities and strengthens democracy,” Rappler said in a statement.

Still, legal challenges to Ressa and Rappler remain. Ressa was convicted in June 2020 in a cyber libel case and faces a potential sentence of up to six years in prison. At the time, rights advocates called her conviction a “frontal assault on freedom of the press.” She is currently out on bail and appealing the conviction before the Supreme Court. She is also appealing the government’s order to shut down Rappler, which was filed in 2018 on the grounds that the news site allegedly violated restrictions on foreign ownership of local media.

One of Ressa’s lawyers, Francis Lim, said that the team hoped that the latest acquittal would lead to the dismissal of the other cases, according to Reuters. The current Philippine President, Ferdinand Marcos Jr., has said he would not interfere in the court cases against Ressa and Rappler.