Truth matters. Checks and balances matter.
I run Rappler, an online news site in the Philippines.
The attacks against me and Rappler began appearing on Facebook in the summer of 2016. A year later President Rodrigo Duterte was repeating them in his State of the Nation address.
If I lose these tax-evasion cases and others filed by the Philippine government, I could go to jail for 10 to 15 years.
We know firsthand how social media and the law have been weaponized against perceived critics of the Duterte administration. We've been reporting on it from the start.
I'm not a criminal but I've been fingerprinted like a criminal.
Frankly, it's a bit shocking to me the lengths government will go to to let little Rappler feel its power.
In 14 months, my government, the Philippine 2 government, has filed 11 cases. I posted bail eight times, I've been arrested twice in five weeks, detained once, and the only thing I've done, my only crime is to be a journalist, to speak truth to power.
After living a decade in Jakarta, I chose. I chose Manila, the Philippines, for better or worse.
How well we survive this time of creative destruction, it really is, depends on each of us, on each of us fighting our individual battles of integrity, for integrity.
What are the values that give meaning? What is the line that you will never cross, because on this side you're good, and on this side you're evil.
