Rappler wins appeal vs SEC shutdown order

Journalist Maria Ressa. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO/LYN RILLON

The online news website Rappler led by Nobel laureate Maria Ressa won an appeal to restore its corporate license after the Court of Appeals (CA) overturned the decision of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to close the media company.

In a July 23 decision made public on Friday, the appellate court ruled that the SEC overstepped its authority in ordering Rappler’s shutdown in 2018.

“Like a bull seeing red, the SEC En Banc plowed through law and jurisprudence to reach its mark—the death of Rappler,” the court said in its ruling, adding that the corporate regulator ignored procedure.

“These actions have no place in a democratic state,” the CA said.

The SEC declined to comment, saying it has yet to receive a copy of the decision.

Rappler’s operating license was rescinded in 2018 for violating foreign equity restrictions on media companies when it sold depository rights to a US-based company. The SEC upheld its findings in 2022.

‘Grave abuse’

It was allowed to operate for the last six years despite the shutdown order.

Rappler had previously argued that the Omidyar Network, the philanthropic arm of eBay founder Pierre Omidyar, was a silent investor. Omidyar cut ties by donating the depository receipts to Rappler’s staff.

The appellate court said this “waiver” by Omidyar already “eliminated any and all constitutional violations committed” by Rappler.

It castigated the SEC for not giving Rappler the opportunity to present Omidyar’s departure from the news organization as evidence.

“Such action is the height of grave abuse of discretion,” the CA said. “Rappler was indeed accorded preferential treatment—a negative one.”

In its 48-page decision penned by Associate Justice Emily San Gaspar-Gito, the CA ordered the SEC to restore Rappler’s certificate of incorporation.

The CA said it “does not agree” with the SEC’s “draconian interpretation” that mere violation of the use of the depository receipts, even after that violation was remedied, “warrant the obliteration of a mass media entity.”

Ressa welcomed the decision, saying it was “a vindication after a tortuous eight years of harassment.”

“Journalists are not the enemy,” Ressa told a news conference hours after the ruling went public.

“We are a Filipino company. We are independent. And it brings us relief and joy that the CA is standing with us and with journalism. This inspires us to do more, to do better,” Ressa said.

‘We had to have faith’

She reaffirmed what she said was Rappler’s continued respect for and faith in the courts.

“I think what was clear through all of this is that there are good people in our judiciary, there are good people in government and we have banked on that. We had to have faith,” Ressa said.

Ressa won the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize along with Russian investigative journalist Dmitry Muratov in a decision widely seen as an endorsement of free speech rights that had come under fire worldwide.

She still faces at least two remaining charges, including a cyberlibel conviction where she could face up to over six years of jail time. She is currently out on bail.

Rappler and Ressa were charged in at least nine indictments that included tax evasion cases, which have been dismissed, after earning the ire of former President Rodrigo Duterte for its reporting on his antidrug campaign that killed thousands of people.

Mocked by Duterte

A day after the SEC announced its decision to shut down Rappler, Duterte called the news site a “fake news outlet” that published stories “rife with innuendos and pregnant with falsity.”

“Since you are a fake news outlet, then I am not surprised that your articles are also fake,” he said. “You’re not only throwing toilet paper. You’re throwing shit at us. You have gone too far.”

Duterte ridiculed Rappler’s argument that the SEC decision constituted harassment and an attack on press freedom.

“Don’t abuse it (press freedom) too much. It’s a privilege in a democratic state. You have overused and abused that privilege in the guise of press freedom,” he said.

In February 2018, Duterte banned all Rappler reporters from entering Malacañang and covering his events. —WITH REPORTS FROM  INQUIRER RESEARCH