Faces of the News: June 21, 2020

ILLUSTRATION BY RENE ELEVERA

Maria Ressa

“Death by a thousand cuts” was how Rappler CEO and executive editor Maria Ressa described her conviction for cyberlibel on Monday.

Though she had expected the decision, Ressa described her case as a “cautionary tale” that could silence critical reports on the administration.

The online libel case is just one of eight cases that this Time 100 awardee and veteran reporter is facing. Ressa, a former CNN correspondent and chief of the ABS-CBN News and Current Affairs, is also charged with tax evasion and securities fraud.

Controversial businessman Wilfredo Keng, who lodged the defamation complaint, filed in February another cyberlibel suit against Ressa over a 2019 tweet. The bail bond she has posted for the cases is much more than that paid by former first lady Imelda Marcos, who has been convicted of graft in four countries, Ressa noted.

Presidential spokesperson Harry Roque, meanwhile, said that the ruling was not affected at all by President Rodrigo Duterte’s recent appointment of the husband of Judge Rainelda Estacio-Montesa and Keng’s daughter to government posts.

—Nikka G. Valenzuela

Rainelda Estacio-Montesa

The high-profile cyberlibel case of Rappler CEO Maria Ressa and former researcher Reynaldo Santos Jr. was heard in the sala of Manila Regional Trial Court Branch 46 Judge Rainelda Estacio-Montesa, who said her “guilty” ruling was based on the presence of all elements of libel in Rappler’s 2012 story about businessman Wilfredo Keng. Montesa’s decision sparked a lot of negative comments, among them from former US Secretaries of State Hillary Clinton and Madeleine Albright, international rights activist Amal Clooney, local opposition figures and top editors around the world who noted her “apparent unfamiliarity with the terrain that is journalism.”

Probably the most stinging reaction comes from activist nun Sister Mary John Mananzan of St. Scholastica’s College, Montesa’s alma mater, who said: “I am sad that she did not learn the values of a Scholastican education.”

The alumna of the University of Santo Tomas and the San Beda College of Law is a frequent lecturer at local and international seminars. Her lecture on global capacity building on cybercrime was delivered in May 2018.

—Nikka G. Valenzuela

Frankie ‘Kakie’ Pangilinan

It isn’t easy to find your own place in the sun when your parents are popular celebrities. But Frankie “Kakie” Pangilinan has been doing just that lately — which is no mean feat when you’re the daughter of Sen. Francis “Kiko” Pangilinan and megastar Sharon Cuneta.

Kakie recently set social media ablaze with her witty and indisputable views on rape when a macho columnist blamed  rape victims for unleashing “the beast” in men with their skimpy outfits.

Earlier, a police precinct in Quezon similarly warned women about wearing clothes that could provoke rape. Shot back the feisty Kakie: “Stop teaching girls how to dress. Teach people not to rape.”

She ended her tweet with the hashtag #HijaAko, a reference to the columnist’s condescending way of addressing her.

The hashtag immediately trended on social media, prompting the senator to say: “If she wishes to be one of the voices of her generation, I will support her.”

For the indefatigable 19-year-old, “it’s not really a matter of politics but of principles. I would march for my principles and what I believe is right.”

—Rito P. Asilo

Jaime Juanillo

In a video he posted last week that has been viewed at least 20 million times, Filipino business owner Jaime Juanillo is seen being called out by a white couple who saw him stenciling “Black Lives Matter” with chalk on a wall of what she said was somebody’s private property, someone she knew, the woman said.

But Lisa Alexander of LaFace Skincare lied, Juanillo later said in TV news interviews, since he has lived in that affluent neighborhood with his husband for the past 18 years.

The white couple apparently couldn’t believe that a man of color belonged in the predominantly white San Francisco community, said Juanillo, who owns a dog-walking business.

Worse, he said, she was willing to call the police, “men with guns,” on him when she knew his chalk art would wash away with rain.

He’s familiar with this kind of thinly veiled racism that emerges from deeply rooted stereotypes, Juanillo said.

Retribution was swift: Alexander lost a lot of business, while her partner lost his job at a public finance firm. Though Alexander apologized for the incident, the couple sued Juanillo for loss of income.

Tab Baldwin

The Samahang Basketbol ng Pilipinas director for the Gilas Pilipinas program is in hot water for comments criticizing the format of the Philippine Basketball Association (PBA).

Tab Baldwin had called local coaches “tactically immature” and dissed referees for giving imports latitude on the rules.

The Ateneo de Manila University head coach who has helped sustain the Blue Eagles’ UAAP dynasty was slapped with a P75,000 fine and was suspended for three games by PBA commissioner Willie Marcial for comments seen as being detrimental to the league.

The penalties were handed out one day after Marcial heard Baldwin’s side. The outspoken Kiwi-American, who is also a TNT KaTropa assistant, had steered New Zealand to a semifinal appearance in the Fiba World Cup.

Despite that, he now faces the problem of how to appease the local coaches he had offended and the PBA board members he had criticized.

In his defense, Baldwin said the comments he had uttered during his controversial appearance in the Coaches Unfiltered podcast on Thursday last week were taken out of context.

—Louie Rivera