Zeteo

01/22/2025

The journalist Maria Ressa understands the threat authoritarian leaders pose to democratic societies as well as anyone. A citizen of both the United States and her native Philippines, Ressa shared the Nobel Peace Prize in 2021 for her work safeguarding freedom of expression from a Filipino government marked by brutality and attacks on the independent press – including multiple criminal charges lodged against her.

Ressa: “Our constitution was literally a copy of the US Constitution. We have three branches of government. We have freedom of the press. Within six months of President Duterte taking office in 2016, those institutions crumbled. We saw, as we are seeing in the United States, leaders in business genuflecting in advance because then you can cut great deals. It’s alarming to me to see the same thing happening all over again. And the first things we saw, of course, [were] journalists coming under attack. Democracy crumbles, checks and balances crumble. I am really worried that America is moving into hell, and must come out. The corruption begins in the information ecosystem.”