Court allows Philippine news site Rappler to continue operating

A Philippine news site co-founded by Nobel laureate Maria Ressa can continue operating after a court overturned a shutdown order, according to the ruling released Friday, the latest legal victory for the media outfit.

Ressa and Rappler have been fighting multiple court cases filed during former president Rodrigo Duterte's administration.

Ressa, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2021, was a vocal critic of Duterte and the deadly drug war he launched in 2016.

That triggered what media advocates say was a grinding series of criminal charges, probes and online attacks against her and Rappler.

"It's a day of celebration, it's a day of hope," a smiling Ressa told a press conference in the Rappler newsroom in Manila.

The Court of Appeals decision, issued on July 23 but only released to the media on Friday, reversed a previous ruling by the Philippine Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that ordered the shutdown of Rappler.

The SEC order had been a "grave abuse of discretion" and contravened "established procedures, jurisprudential and legal instructions, and clear intent of the Constitution", the court said.

The SEC shutdown order was affirmed on June 28, 2022, days before Duterte left office. It was first issued in 2018.

It revoked Rappler's "certificate of incorporation" for violating constitutional and statutory restrictions on foreign ownership in mass media.

Rappler continued operating as it appealed the SEC order.

"It's a vindication after a tortuous eight years of harassment," Rappler said in a statement.

"We are a Filipino company. We are independent."

Under the constitution, investment in media is reserved for Filipinos or Filipino-controlled entities.

The case sprang from the 2015 investment from the US-based Omidyar Network, established by eBay founder Pierre Omidyar.

Omidyar later transferred its investment in Rappler to the site's local managers to stave off efforts by Duterte to shut it down.

- 'Long overdue' -

After the overturning of the SEC decision, Human Rights Watch researcher Carlos Conde said that "justice and good sense have prevailed".

"The Court of Appeals decision to void the SEC's shutdown order against Rappler is long overdue," Conde said.

"That order should never have been handed down by the Duterte administration, whose vindictiveness knew no bounds."

The Department of Justice dropped a charge last year alleging Ressa illegally put Rappler under foreign control.

Ressa has also been acquitted on five government charges of tax evasion.

Ressa and a former colleague are still appealing a cyber libel conviction that carries a nearly seven-year jail sentence.

She also faces the prospect of a maximum 15-year jail sentence if convicted in a separate case stemming from the Omidyar investment.

"Obviously I don't want to go to jail," Ressa told reporters of the cyber libel case hanging over her head.

"But I'm not going to let it stop me from doing my job."