VP Leni commends Ressa for ‘courage in service for others’

Vice President and presidential aspirant Leni Robredo commended veteran journalist Maria Ressa after she received the Nobel Peace Prize on Dec. 10 in Oslo, Norway.

“[Ressa] reflects the highest ideals not only in journalism, not only of our people, but of all humanity: courage in service of others,” Robredo said in a statement.

According to Robredo, Maria, [who is also Rappler CEO], “was honored not only for telling the truth; she won the Nobel for carrying that truth forward in the face of harassment, abuse and an entire ecosystem built to strip it of its power.”

“May she serve as an example in standing up for the truth,” Robredo said.

Ressa received the Nobel Peace Prize along with Russian journalist Dmitry Muratov. She is the first Filipino to win the award.

In her speech, Ressa said that “the attacks against us in Rappler began five years ago when we demanded an end to impunity on two fronts: Rodrigo Duterte’s drug war and Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook. Today, it has only gotten worse – and Silicon Valley’s sins came home to roost in the United States on January 6 with mob violence on Capitol Hill.”

“What happens on social media doesn’t stay on social media. Online violence is real world violence,” Ressa said.

Ressa said: “Facebook is the world’s largest distributor of news, and yet studies have shown that lies laced with anger and hate spread faster and further than facts.”

“Without facts, you can’t have truth. Without truth, you can’t have trust. Without trust, we have no shared reality, no democracy, and it becomes impossible to deal with the existential problems of our times: climate, coronavirus, now, the battle for truth,” Ressa said.