On Friday, March 21, Nobel Peace Prize-winning journalist Maria Ressa greeted Rolling Stone Philippines readers with a message at Rolling Stone Philippines LIVE!, the magazine’s print launch event.
Ressa graces one of three covers of Rolling Stone Philippines’s maiden issue, a spot she earned through her exhaustive work in political journalism. In her cover story, she offers journalism and community-building as solutions to the disinformation and isolation pervading the age of Big Tech.
As chief executive officer of digital news outfit Rappler, she shed light on the disinformation machines powering national and global institutions. In exposing these, she faced cyber libel charges during the Duterte administration — charges journalists and human rights advocates have deemed threatening not only to the right to freedom of expression but also to democracy.
The following is Ressa’s Q&A with Rolling Stone Philippines Chief of Editorial Content Jonty Cruz during the magazine’s grand launch. The Q&A has been edited for brevity and clarity.
Welcome to Rolling Stone Philippines LIVE! Thank you so much for being here. How are you and how have you been in the last two weeks, especially with everything that’s happening in the country right now?
I was traveling like crazy the last few weeks. I had left New York to go to Mexico City, and Mexico was when President Trump and the president of Mexico had their conversation. I saw the way the business community reacted to it, which is, I hope, the way the Philippines will react to what is happening globally, to look for opportunities.. So that was one, but then I came in early Saturday morning, and we had heard that a warrant had been issued. So that would have been Friday evening at The Hague in [Belgium time], and then Chay Hofileña [of Rappler] wrote the story. And so we were getting ready.
We’ve been following this since August 2023, which is when supposedly, the first arrest warrant was coming out. We published the story on Saturday. We got attacked. What you’re seeing is massive disinformation kicking back around again [during] the arrest. So our story on that Saturday was about how former President Duterte flew to Hong Kong and how an arrest warrant had been issued. Come Tuesday, he’s flying back, and the rest happens.
It was really fascinating to be there, to see the reaction… because all of us, we’ve been covering the ICC forever. I think we were doing meetings. Finally, when the plane took off and you heard the cheer from the airport, we had our folks all through the night. How did I feel? I think I knew it was still going to be a long process. And we moved on.
Next day, I think I flew… Where did I go? Brussels. I can’t remember where I went., Stockholm, and then Berlin, and then now I’m in New York. The world is insane right now. We have never lived through anything like what we’re living through today. And I would say, you know, sometimes people, we’d compare it to World War II, around the formation of the United Nations, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the atomic bomb. But I would say it’s even worse than that time period because you have technology that has allowed people like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg to have the power of gods. We’ve never lived through anything like this and whether or not democracy survives… the kind of global system, capitalism, whether that survives, I think this will all be determined, I was going to say the next year, but when I keep looking at what’s happening in the next few weeks and months because of the turmoil that America is in right now…
You’ve talked about the relationship between democracy and journalism quite a bit. I’d like to ask how that relationship started for you. When did you see this relationship between democracy and journalism?
I mean, from the very beginning, right? In the Philippines, I came back after the People Power. I came back in 1986 and what happened? Seven coup attempts. I mean, come on. There was a period of time when I was working for PTV 4 [the government broadcast station] before, and I was there through “God Save the Queen.” I lived through all of this. What’s the first thing that happens in a coup back in those days? You take over a government station. I was there when they tried to take over GMA 7, but each time, PTV 4 was always a target, and then IBC 13.
What’s critical during a crisis or to hold power? Information, right? What triggered People Power? Radyo Veritas, right? It’s information. The quality of information is critical to the life of a democracy.
I began the Manila [CNN] bureau in 1987 and then began covering Southeast Asia for CNN… I would say probably 1992-1993. I opened the Jakarta bureau in 1995. I was traveling so much in Southeast Asia and South Asia, and I began to realize that the quality of a democracy is directly connected to the quality of journalism.
We’re standing on the rubble of the world that was and now we have to rebuild.
Those years from 1986 to 1998 were the years when democracy seemed unstoppable. The People Power Revolution in the Philippines was followed: In 1987, you had Myanmar, [then] you had Korea. Thailand had several. But I was there in Jakarta in 1998, with the end of almost 32 years of Suharto. And then what’s fascinating right now, it’s like Back to the Future. You have a Marcos back in the Philippines. Prabowo Subianto of Indonesia. You have Anwar back in after Mahathir comes through.
So the world is upside down, but looking for a way to come right side up. You know something is going on when the Philippines — as turbulent as we are — is more stable than the United States. That’s kind of true when you’re in the Philippines, and only looking at the Philippines, it seems like everything is chaotic. But that arrest proved something. The biggest question that the world has to answer right now is whether an international rules-based order still exists, and the Philippines, in its action, actually proved that it does. It also gave this sense that impunity ends, that at some point you will be held responsible for your words. I say that while President Trump in the United States is upending institutions and walking away from international agreements.
I know it seems dire where you are now, but I’d also like to ask about your current time and work with the Vatican. How does that inform your spirituality? Do you feel more optimistic about the future of humanity?
I don’t think it’s dire. I think you have to call a spade a spade in order to be able to create. I think this is the creation after the destruction, and I said that in the Nobel lecture. We’re standing on the rubble of the world that was and now we have to rebuild. I hope that’s what we do in the Philippines. I turned to the Vatican. It was actually the pope who first started inviting me, and I’m kind of a wayward Catholic. I believe in God, but I’ve also studied all five world religions, and we have a ton of things in common in all of those. But I think getting to know Pope Francis and watching closely as our world is manipulated by fear, anger, and hate. When we mapped our information ecosystem in the Philippines, we realized that there are only four clusters in the Philippines. You have those who cluster around news, those who cluster around art, those who cluster around activism, and then the fourth is faith. And if the Catholic Church doesn’t move forward, if established religions don’t fill that space and don’t provide a kind of visceral sense of meaning, purpose, and connectedness, then cults take over. That would be where I would put the man who calls himself the Son of God, who is now also in prison, Apollo Quiboloy — former President Duterte’s pastor — who’s wanted by the FBI for sex trafficking.
I always bring you to the negative, right? I guess I don’t think about it as negative. I think you need to know those things in order to be able to find the positive and not to be sentimental.
I think people are good, and that’s part of what the Vatican shows. Pope Francis has very similar values that a democracy has. He asked me to be the first speaker for the Jubilee. How crazy is that? A journalist! One of [the journalists] at Rappler, Aries Rufo, wrote a book about the Catholic Church in the Philippines. Journalists have been investigating the Catholic Church and Pope Francis, I think this is the sense of power that you understand. It isn’t just your self-interest that even if someone offends you — I guess [it’s] the Catholic thing, [to] turn the other cheek — but you need all of those voices.
Culture is the way you change the world. It connects to some part of you that isn’t rational. And at a time when tech is manipulating our emotions, the worst of who we are, I hope we touch those things in the Philippines.
So yeah, a long answer to your question, Jonty. Pope Francis, thank God he’s getting better. So there is always hope He holds the line on it. And Pope Francis, talk about somebody who really is a political player. I mean, because he has to bring the church into the modern world, and I don’t know what will happen now given everything that is going on in the world’s largest democracy.
I just wanted to follow up on what you just said and ask about what for you is the danger of being sentimental?
That’s been a battle my whole life. Because sentimentality is like froth on your coffee. Sentimentality isn’t necessarily real.Sentimentality is just like feeling good for feeling good, and you shouldn’t feel good if things are bad, because then if you stay in sentimentality, it’s not real for me. Oftentimes, we tend to get lost in that. Sentimentality is the easy part, the froth, but not anchored. Does that make sense?
Yeah. It sort of evokes empathy or understanding, but it’s not real empathy.
So it’s like these Hallmark cards that actually take a stereotype and then kind of crystallizes it, but it’s a stereotype, right? It’s like what you said: There is something real underneath it, but you didn’t get to what’s real. And as a journalist, I want to get to what’s real. It’s such a troubled world, especially when I moved to the Philippines and I was covering Southeast Asia, there’s so much to be done. You want to move towards progress, and we did for a long period of time.
Again, there’s nothing wrong with being sentimental. Some people can be and stay sentimental. I just feel like real relationships are anchored on real emotions. I don’t want to spend my life turning away from those emotions. I think artists touch those while sometimes, in our daily lives, we let these emotions slide by. We take people for granted. But you know, one of the things I like about the life I’ve led is that in order to be in the moment, you have to live it. And again, that also comes from method acting. You have to be in the moment. You focus on the moment, then you feel it. You don’t want to skate through life.
Before we leave, I just wanted to ask if you have any message for our audience, not just those who are interested in media, but for those who value journalism and its purpose, its goal, and how we can strive towards it.
Well, let me say first from the last question, and let me connect it to Rolling Stone. First of all, I can’t believe you chose a journalist to be your cover! But, I really thank you. On the flip side of this is when I was graduating college, my best friend worked for Rolling Stone, and so I met Jan Wenner. I hope this is where you go with this, but it’s important to know that you don’t stay in the froth, you don’t stay in the sentimentality of music and art.
These are the ways culture can change politics, culture is the way we change the world. And there hasn’t been anything like that where we are [now]. Maybe in 1986, there was something. But what I liked about Rolling Stone and one of the reasons I like New York — [but] I love Manila more, home is Manila — is this: that music, art, culture is the way you change the world; that it connects to some part of you that isn’t rational. And at a time when tech is manipulating our emotions, the worst of who we are, I hope we touch those things in the Philippines, right? You even look at the campaign jingles in the elections. I would have loved to have taken them apart in a different way like you have. You have a great open field.
Here’s the last part. Cambridge Analytica, I know it was a scandal, but the way they worked, what they built, was a way to shift and shift politics by changing culture. That’s how it began.
Is there anything that you want to tell our audience and how we can keep going, like how you’re doing it?
I think this is a time of creativity. We have to create because it’s been destroyed. I think that there is an opportunity for the Philippines. We just have to… I mean, we always say [that] we have to get our acts together, but there’s an opportunity right now, because look, even our legislation, we haven’t done anything yet with social media, with technology, and now post-arrest of Duterte, we’ve been doing these stories on the Information Operations and what it’s doing. I think the government and its citizens, I think we can do more. We shouldn’t be passive at this time. Tipping point isn’t the right word. It’s a moment of inflection and creation, and the way we act will determine the world that we live in. This is a critical year.
Thank you again, so much for your time, Maria. It’s such a huge honor to have you as part of Rolling Stone Philippines, both on our cover and at our event today.
Thank you also. You know, I play eight instruments, and when you mentioned this, I was like, “Oh, my God, that’s so funny.” But you know, I’m not courageous enough to do that for a living. Better as a journalist.
