Philippine Court Acquits Nobel Laureate of Tax Charges Filed by Former Government

Maria Ressa, journalist and CEO of the Rappler news website, poses before a news conference to launch a commission to draft an "International Declaration on Information and Democracy" hold by Human rights group Reporters Without Borders in Paris, France, on Sept. 11, 2018. Gonzalo Fuentes/File Photo/Reuters

A Philippine court on Wednesday cleared a Nobel Prize-winning journalist and her news site of tax-evasion charges filed by the former Duterte government in 2018, a verdict that rights group hailed as “a victory” for the Philippine media.

The court acquitted Maria Ressa and Rappler Holdings Corp. (RHC) as prosecutors failed to prove “beyond reasonable doubt” that they evaded tax payments when raising capital through partnerships with foreign investors.

“No gain or income was realized by the accused in the subject transactions,” the court said in its ruling, Rappler reported. Among the foreign investors are U.S.-based North Base Media (NBM) and Omidyar Network (ON).

“There is nothing in the wordings of the PDR [Philippine depository receipts] instruments and the PDR subscription agreements that would show the foreign entities NBM and ON will become owners of the shares of stock of Rappler,” it added.

The tax charges against Ressa and Rappler stemmed from a separate charge by the nation’s Securities and Exchange Commission in 2018 that the news website violated a constitutional provision prohibiting foreign ownership and control of Philippine media companies by receiving funds from foreign investors through financial papers PDR.

The commission ordered the closure of Rappler on the basis of the allegation, which Rappler denied and has appealed, saying it is a news company totally owned and controlled by Filipinos.

“Today, facts win, truth wins, justice wins,” Ressa said after the verdict. “This acquittal, even if took a long time, is not just for Rappler. It is for every Filipino who has ever been unjustly accused.”

Elaine Pearson, Asia director of Human Rights Watch, called the acquittal a victory for press freedom in the Philippines, praising the court for finding no basis for the “bogus [and] politically motivated charges.”

There was no immediate reaction from the Philippine government or former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte.

Ressa and Rappler face three more legal cases: a separate tax case filed by prosecutors in another court; her Supreme Court appeal of an online libel conviction; and Rappler’s appeal of the closure order issued by the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Ressa, who won and shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Russian journalist Dmitry Muratov in 2021, faces up to six years in prison if she loses the appeal of the libel conviction, which was filed by a businessman who accused Rappler of falsely linking him to murder, drug dealing, human trafficking, and other crimes.

Rappler, founded in 2012, was one of several Philippine and international news agencies that reported critically on Duterte’s brutal crackdown on illegal drugs that left thousands of mostly petty drug suspects dead and his handling of the coronavirus pandemic, including prolonged police-enforced lockdowns, that deepened poverty, caused one of the country’s worst recessions, and sparked corruption allegations in government medical purchases.

The massive drug killings are being investigated by the International Criminal Court as a possible crime against humanity.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.