Maria Ressa received her Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo yesterday. Rappler and her like-minded counterparts in the Philippines have been signing paeans of praise to her for being the first “Filipino” to win a Nobel.
Irony of ironies. She isn’t even Filipino. By ethnicity she is. By citizenship, she is. But she is first and foremost, an American citizen. Maria is not even Filipino in her mindset. She’s an American liberal, educated in an Ivy League school. Her accent is American. Have you ever heard her speak Pilipino?
The fourth estate, as the press was described in the glory years of journalism, was supposed to protect the public from the excesses of government; the politicians who held power. If we go by what Rappler has been doing since its inception, it’s out to change the public mindset. At least those in its target demographic niche who can be put on the career path to becoming future leaders. Wokeism is real. Political correctness is the norm. To be conservative in one’s politics nowadays merits being labeled a dictator, authoritarian and a demagogue. This is how Rappler characterizes the Duterte administration.
Filipinos cannot and will not be united for so long as there are these elitists in society who foster division for them to stay in power. ABS-CBN dumbed down generations of Filipinos since it went back on the air in 1986. It is ironic now that with information at their fingertips because of smartphones, most educated Filipinos won’t even bother to expand their knowledge and understand what the bone of contention is in issues which concern them. They would prefer to be spoon-fed and then make a decision about their stand. This is for those who still possess critical-thinking. Others simply follow the herd or what they think to be cool.
Rappler is Maria Ressa’s vehicle for cultivating and nurturing the Filipino youth to adopt liberal values. She is not alone in this effort because she is supported by the top public and private educational institutions in the country. The Philippines has been chosen because we are the only “Western” country in Asia. Our identity crisis began with the Spaniards and continued with the Americans. We have never had patriots for leaders. Only traitors who sold us to to our colonizers and replaced them after we were given “independence.”
Ressa claims that social media platforms are full of disinformation. She speaks of truth to power and holding the line against persecution, tyranny and repression but the question is, do these conditions actually exist in the Philippines? Or are they what Maria wants the rest of the world to think?
Judging by the awards she’s won, she’s been able to hoodwink like-minded American and European liberals that the Philippines is led by a populist demagogue in the person of Rodrigo Duterte.
Fortunately for the country, not all Filipinos believe in the lies that Maria is peddling. Rappler is the least trusted media organization in the country today. Those who fall in a awe at Maria’s feet are in the minority. They are not even in the millions but only in the thousands.
But what does it speak of our country that we host a fake Filipino who has chosen to denigrate her own ethnicity before the global community? Why do we tolerate a Maria Ressa as a “Filipino” when she is actually not?
It was no less than Vice-President Leni Robredo who claimed that the Filipino is an abused woman who cannot leave her abusive husband. If you think about it, this is more an apt description for their kind because they cannot live with the choice that Filipinos made in 2016 when they elected Rodrigo Duterte President. This is simply what it’s all about.
Rappler doesn’t cater to the masses because it believes in subverting democracy’s. It is about the rule of the minority through the development of like-minded leaders and not about the true will of the people; the masses who make up the majority.
Maria Ressa is just a sock puppet for her principals. She shouldn’t be allowed to use the Philippines as her platform or even her laboratory for the experiment that her principals have asked her to run which is basically subverting a democracy in their favor.
Let’s face it. Rappler wouldn’t be tolerated in any other ASEAN member country. Why should we bear the ignominy of doing so when we should be declaring Maria Ressa persona non grata and send her back home to the United States?
This should be the fate of foreigners who denigrate our country and our people before the international community.
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