at the time. After the fi rst articles in Rappler’s
series appeared, thousands of anti- Ressa mes-
sages spread across Facebook and Twitter — at
the rate of 90 an hour, by her count. Many urged
that she be called before the Senate and con-
tained the hashtag #Arrest MariaRessa. ‘‘They
were astro turfi ng, creating a fake bandwagon,’’
Ressa says. ‘‘From there it jumped to real people
calling for my arrest, and then it got into sex
and violence: ‘Maybe Maria Ressa’s dream is to
become the ultimate porn star in a gangbang
scene,’ and ‘Make sure Ressa gets publicly raped
to death when martial law makes it to Luzon, it
would bring joy to my heart.’ ’’
Until this point, Duterte had refrained from
publicly attacking Rappler. But in January 2018,
Rappler ran an article charging that Christo-
pher Go, Duterte’s closest aide in both Davao
and Manila, had improperly intervened with
the Philippine Department of National Defense
to steer a $289 million contract for an onboard
computerized defense system to a favored South
Korean manufacturer. The Senate subpoenaed
Go and other members of Duterte’s cabinet to
testify. Pia Ranada covered the Senate hearings.
Harry Roque, the president’s spokesman at the
time, said Duterte grew furious about a ‘‘betray-
al’’ from a reporter whom he had treated ‘‘like a
granddaughter.’’ Duterte banned Ranada from the
palace, denounced Rappler as ‘‘a fake news outlet’’
in a news conference and then barred all Rappler
reporters from attending presidential events.
The Philippine Securities and Exchange Com-
mission had already taken away Rappler’s oper-
ating license, charging that it had violated the
Constitution by selling control to a foreign entity.
(Pierre Omidyar, the founder of eBay and First
Look Media, invested $1.5 million in 2015 through
his Omidyar Network, though he exercised no
control over operations.) Now the solicitor gen-
eral announced that he had opened an investi-
gation into Rappler. Ressa and members of Rap-
pler’s board were also indicted on a charge of
tax fraud relating to the P.S.E.C. case. And Ressa
faced both criminal and civil ‘‘cyber libel’’ charges
for Rappler’s 2012 coverage of accusations of cor-
rupt ties between a businessman and the former
Supreme Court chief justice.
On Feb. 13, Ressa was in a Rappler conference
room at 5 in the afternoon when she heard a
commotion outside. ‘‘An editor came in and said,
‘That’s the National Bureau of Investigation, and
they’re here to arrest you,’ ’’ Ressa recalls. Half a
dozen agents from the N.B.I. had come to detain
her on the cyber libel charge. ‘‘I said, ‘Holy crap!’ ’’
One read Ressa her Miranda rights, which are
enshrined in the 1987 Philippine Constitution.
Editors called the news media and summoned
lawyers. Rappler staff members live- streamed
Ressa’s arrest. ‘‘One agent threatened one of
our reporters, telling him, ‘Be silent, or you will
be next,’ ’’ Ressa recalls. Ressa was taken to the
police station and spent an uncomfortable night
in a chair after a night-court judge refused to
process her bail.
A month and a half later, on March 28, the
N.B.I. came after Rappler again. Rappler’s man-
aging editor and fi ve other former and current
board members were issued arrest warrants on
charges of violating the anti- dummy law, a stat-
ute that prevents Filipino citizens from acting
as fronts, or ‘‘dummies,’’ for a foreign owner.
Ressa was in California, attending a conference
on press freedom that was sponsored by Goo-
gle, when she received the news. She boarded
a fl ight back to Manila. After the 14-hour trip,
she came down the jetway and found uniformed
police offi cers waiting for her. Again, Ressa was
read the arrest warrant and her Miranda rights
and taken to the station. This time her lawyers
were ready, but even so, it took seven hours for
Ressa to be released.By 4 p.m. on May 9, thousands of Duterte sup-
porters had assembled beneath a huge canvas
tent in Rizal Park opposite Davao City’s City
Hall, a colonnaded, butterscotch- color building
built in 1926. The midterm election was four days
away. Thousands of local posts and half the 24
seats in the Senate, still dominated by the oppo-
sition, were up for grabs. Polls showed Duterte’s
popularity at 81 percent, an indication that his
Davao- based alliance would sweep the Senate.
A couple of days earlier, Ressa decided to
challenge the ban on Rappler reporters in Davao
City and approved Pia Ranada’s plan to go incog-
nito to cover the campaign rally, where Duterte
was scheduled to speak. The president had risen
to prominence here, and the crowd, many of
them poor, many wearing T-shirts emblazoned
with his image, waited enthusiastically in the
oppressive heat for the spectacle to begin.
Three years into his term, Duterte was at the
peak of his popularity. His tough-guy persona
and profanity- laced straight talk had entranced
tens of millions of Filipinos, and his apparent
success at making the barrios safe, even if it
resulted in the extrajudicial killings of thousands
of people, had enhanced his image as a politician
who made good on his promises. Ressa and her
readership — millennial, college- educated and
middle- and upper- middle class — seemed far
removed from these rally goers.
At sunset, the lights came up, and the crowd
stirred with excitement. Political rallies in the
Philippines are known for their loud, kitschy,
Hollywood- style entertainment, and now Mayor
Sara Duterte, the president’s daughter, and her
brother, Paolo, a former vice mayor, led the party
slate across the stage. Pop music pulsated, strobes
fl ashed and slick videos displayed images of each
Senate candidate on giant screens; aides tossed
rolled- up party T-shirts into outstretched hands.Ronald Revilla, a former action- movie star
and ex- senator, grabbed a microphone and
crooned a duet with his wife, the mayor of a
town near Manila. Revilla had spent four years
in prison awaiting trial for plundering $4.3
million in public funds before being acquitted
last December; he still faced 16 counts of graft.
Now he was throwing his lot in with Duterte
and attempting a comeback. Ramon dela Rosa,
a brawny and bald former police chief of Davao,
who had been the subject of a recent biopic and
was now making a Senate run, belted a romantic
melody. Then Christopher Go — the presidential
aide turned Senate candidate whom Ranada had
enraged with her article — addressed the throng.
‘‘Who among you is a drug addict?’’ asked Go,
a slight fi gure in a polo shirt and jeans. Some of
the rally goers laughed nervously, well aware of
the fate that often met anyone accused of abus-
ing shabu, the Philippine name for crystal meth.46 10.20.19