sub kobe pandemic, yet it has been able to maintain studied economic growth, but economic london high port prices along with inflation and subsidy. while all employed along with heavy spending on mega project could pose a major challenge for the government and coming months. because of the increase in fuel prices in recent days, we've had to raise the bus fare because of that passengers are getting upset and frequently get into fights and arguments with us. the international monetary farms believe volatility of the exchange rate and the fears of the export. dwindling due to the slowdown of the global economy because of the ukraine, russia was court, become the main barrier for macroeconomic stability in the country. ah, main stories are following this. allen now, in italy, a prime minister is one,

a conference vote in the senate bought the move, which was meant to restore unison as government could instead see it collapse. naya draggy called the motion to try to and divisions within his governing coalition. but the 3 main coalition partners refused to take part in a vote. drago tried to step down last week. the president rejected his resignation, urging him to try to revive his administration. so ada rainy in rome has more now on what it means to my the truckee is he's expected to travel to the quitting alley . that's the hill not far from here to the presidential palace. we don't know yet what he is going to say, but usually in these circumstances the prime minister just resigns. it's not clear if this time the president said you're not that i would accept it. most likely he would because what happened here on wednesday just showed that this national unity government is anything but unified emergency crews of battling forest fires across

large parts of southern europe and more mass evacuation orders have been issued for this in spain, fires burning in high regions of the country, hundreds of people have also died from heat related issues. meanwhile, in greece, thousands of people there have had to leave their homes as fires, been very close to the capital athens. and then in the u. s. president joe biden is now $2300000000.00 in funding to help communities deal with climate change. he's gotten out executive actions to combat the climate emergency in the coming days in shall anchor. ronald witnessing is going to be sworn in as president on thursday, despite his lack of popularity with the public. he faces a difficult task of leading the country out of an economic crisis and restoring order after months of unrest. he, formerly, they'll go to bar roger packs of fled the country last week during mass protest, and then resigned. this trust all richie soon act will be britain's next prime minister. foreign secretary and former chancellor of the final 2 candidates,

a new case, conservative party leadership contest the when are we chosen in a ronald vote by party members and will replace boris johnson as prime minister in september of munoz. he later on the stream as the program coming up next. ah, i thought i as i me okay to day on the street, we are joined by the veteran journalist, a c e o, an executive editor of the new slight wrapper, a noble laureate, maria ressa, and i should also add friend of the stream were thank you so much for joining us

today. we're going to be talking about the future of press freedom in the philippines. is that even a presence for press freedom in the philippines at in i would say tbd, you know, we're, we're at a place where the outgoing administration certainly kind of punted the ball to the incoming one. and we need to see what the incoming, what the marcus administration is going to do. but the last few days a week before the end of the do turn had ministration websites were blocked news websites. these progressive new sites are a decade old. you know, all of a sudden, a country that has only block pornographic websites is done something it has never done before. that was followed by new laws, the, well, they're try, it's a trial balloon for broadcast stations where it, it almost functions like a form of prior restraint. block timers need to go through the and t c, which if you remember, actually took away the license to operate of abs, he began, right? they asked the largest broadcast to shut down. and then the,

the last 2 things that happened before the end of the marco's administration were rapidly related. 2 days before the end of the administration, before president mark also took his oath of office. we effectively got our shut down order, and of course, we are fighting that in court. we continue to operate business as usual, and then a few days after president marco's took office. and i then, and a former colleague received really horrendous news that the court of appeals to denied our appeal on cyber libel. so this is, you know, it ain't of, i've called a death by a 1000 cats. what fed me, i feel like we've talked about this for a while and it's all coming together all at the same time. maria, behind me, i have an image of you and your colleagues from 2018. that was the 1st time when we heard about rappa being threatened with a shot down 2018. you're still going. what is it like behind the scenes?

i am tired, exhausted, but yet rejuvenated. if that makes sense, right. a? that was and like you said 2018 and we got the 1st shut down order in january 2018 . we immediately told everybody what was happening. it was unprecedented. the 1st time the s r s e c. had ever done something like this to any company with a p d r and to a noose organization. right? so we did that then and we continued to fight it in court. as you know, i went from 2018 when maybe we had 14 investigations. they came down to 11 cases, then it went all the way down to now i have 7 criminal cases. rattler has 8, including the se c k. so it's become like pollution. you know, it's in the air we breathe and yet we know that it is incredibly important to keep

doing our jobs at the mission of journalism is as it is more important to day than it has ever been we, i'm going to give our audience who are watching right now on youtube, an opportunity to talk to, to ask questions to find out more about press freedom in the philippines. what is possible? what is not possible? so you tube, if you're on there right now, you can speak to maria. it's it's, it's very difficult to get out of it. so this is a wonderful opportunity for you to do. so i'm going to move along to one of your cohorts. i name is ronel in aliya. she is the managing editor of polite plants in the philippine i. yes, and i will been talking to her recently about what is the landscape like for independent journalists? this is what she told us for. it's consistent human rights to avoid being in for exporting the lice, federal better powers that we will at last, the longest running online media outfit in the philippines has been repeatedly read bad and subjected to cyber attacks. recently,

a government agency or during the blocking of our website under the guise of hiding harrison. we can then this unconditional act as a violation of our right to republish a violation of the rights of our readers and subscribers the access. i am the relevant and capital information. this is yet another form of harassment against the independent media interference. it's really interesting because i know whenever we talk to maria, we, you, you bring your trolls along with you. very generous to share with us and unusual. thank you. ok. i spotted a, a comment about well, the reason you were sued was because you were lying we, we've talked about this as well. what is that like as, as a journalist and this happens other journeys in the philippines where there's this, this in the cabal of trolls who are ready. who are they, what are they doing?

what is the point? yes. so think about it as, you know, a system that a, and i was using epidemiology before the pandemic happened. but let's use that, right. you introduce a virus of lies into the system. so that is a disinformation, right? so someone wanted to do that, but then it infects real people. and in many ways, psychological studies have shown that once they believe it, it is, it's far harder to change their minds and you see things like this say, would stop the steel in the united states right? with what's happening with january 6. so when that happens, these are real people, but you tube is a particularly is a special case because just in the last year or so, you to became number one. and in terms of the amount of dis, information on video, that is where it is seeded 1st and then facebook is used to distribute it. twitter

is just being breached. great now by disinformation networks are also really important to note that the detect and mark lostness information networks of worked together since 2016. but now, what we saw a leading up to the election of, of president marcus today was really a concerted effort to answer the charges of history with plausible answers. like, for example, where did the marquesas get their wealth? well, if you live in one of the poorer neighborhoods in the philippines and many news organizations, international news, rigans, asians came in with the same stories. they will tell you that the reason they voted for mark was just because they know they will get gold. and that is a video that was seated ally on youtube, spread on facebook and real people, believe it in terms of attacks, like against me, against any opposition, pull that politician actually forget it against news organizations. these types of

attacks hammer the credibility, you know, and there was a big data case study that done by i c, j and unesco in 2021. they looked at the attacks against me all over half a 1000000 attacks. and they showed that 60 percent of the attacks were meant to tear down my credibility. 40 percent were literally aimed at me to tear down my spirit. that by the way, is the tactic that is more prevalent to day on twitter as, as these information operation seep into twitter, what they're doing is creating more new accounts, right? so they, they will have 0 followers or 10 followers. and then they will take dormant old accounts again 0 to 10 followers, and they will just trash you, you know, and i keep thinking, what kind of ripple do they want. there is no ripple. the goal is to make you to affect you to make you stop. so we're, we've just gathered the data and we'll be doing a story on this family. but it is fascinating to watch. i just wish that i wasn't

the target. busy it's fuzzy, have if you're observing it from somebody else and it's not coming directly to your account. i totally understand that. for many years we thought it was that the touchy administration that had issues with free press journalism wrapped as new site with you. then as a new administration, coming in a new marcus administration, coming in early as we spoke to sean crispin, he is from the committee to protect journalists. i want to share with you his optimistic take of what that change in administration might actually produce. when you hear him as soon as he's finished, i would really love your response. maria has shown festival. it's c. p. j's hope that the damage done to philippine press freedom under the deter tape, ministration is reversed under the new marcus junior government. the new president

has said he plans to unify the nation and we have asserted that a meaningful step in that direction would be to reverse his predecessors, anti press policies and allow the press to report freely without fear of reprisal. the new president has a strong popular mandate. he was elected overwhelmingly, and we've argued that he should put that democratic mandate to use by allowing the press to report freely to allowing journalist to operate without fear of reprisal. and to effectively restore the philippines place as one of the freest media in asia. a reputation it had previously, and that was damaged, undeterred. se i have the same hopes. remember at the beginning i said tbd. so we wait to see what president mark

was actually does. but these hopes have to be pragmatic. i mean, you know, you take a look at the, at the behavior during the campaign where candidate marcos was very much like j, your bull sanara in brazil where, you know, he travels with his cadre of bloggers and bloggers and actually sets his news agenda. he's done that in his 1st week, an office of without dealing with the media because why bother with those pesky journalist who asked these tough questions? i hope right. we at rattler continued to hope it. it's a new administration, but the danger signals are, are there and walking into the 1st into july with the threat of a shut down. certainly makes you worry. right. and you heard what len said from bullet lot. they, they, this is like, shoot, 1st ask questions later they took down the website. they tried to file for

a temporary restraining order, and the court denied it. so they are fighting for their rights while they've already been been gagged. in our case, hope for the best, but we are also prepared for the worst and we continue to ask the judges and the justices in our court system to maintain rule of flaw, to uphold press freedom and appeal to the incoming president. right. here's the, here's the downfall of this for them. i think part of the problem is the president marcos is coming to power at an extremely difficult time globally. his biggest problem is going to be inflation and getting controlling. let's be nice, controlling these pesky questions, controlling media. what we are seeing, the information operations on social media by getting control of that in some ways makes their lives easier. i guess what, what i would like to say is, you know, we're not your enemy. we understand the difficulties that are there,

do not make us the enemy actually beyond that lease up, follow the constitution is a phrase that you use and, and your supporters and, and people who fill the rapper and other journalistic outlets of really important which is hold the line, right, to clay. what does that mean? because from my perspective, i am seeing rapp le yourself, other independent journalists, having to take a lot of pressure from the authorities in the philippines. but how do you push back? how do you survive? so hold the line is you know, that line of the constitution where our, our rights are defined. the philippine constitution is like the u. s. we have a bill of rights press freedom is and shrine freedom of expression, freedom of speech, right. and what we have experienced in the last 6 years is like having a bulldozer try to push you back because the end goal of any autocrat dictator to

be, is to have everyone voluntarily give up their rights. because then they're not autocrats or dictators. it's the people who want it. well, we sound the alarm, there is a concerted effort to, to push back to, to have us to force us to give up these rights. and that we're not going to voluntarily give up our rights. how do we do our jobs? we just keep doing our jobs. it's certainly much harder. but for me, you know, this, i don't think it's in the philippines alone. press freedom in the last 10 in the last decade. as you know, i think if you look at c, p j's own own, and r s, f's own indexes, you can see that it's rolled back beyond that. the freedom. oh, my gosh, another study, freedom house has shown that democracy itself has rolled back in the last 15 years . right. so what is happening to journalists is

a natural consequence of losing our democracy. and i think that's part of the reason. you know, you say please do not voluntarily give up your rights. i am going to send some time engaging with some of the comments and questions that we're getting in on you cheve right now. so let's start with this one. what would you change to protect journalism in philippines, if you could, what would be different checks and balances. we go back to, you know, taking out the, the trolls and the intimidation tactics. because the way journalists are being controlled now is not even by power as much as the plausible deniability of power by social media. you ask a tough question in a press conference, you will not just have to deal with the person you're asking, but you are getting clobbered online. that's the 1st step, right? respect against civility. what does that, what does that mean in the age of social media?

this is where i've, you know, i've also talked about technology platforms, really abdicating responsibility for protecting the public sphere. it isn't just journalists, taura packed women, algae, b, t, q. anyone who is already marginalized in the real world gets marginalized even further on social media. and in the nobel lecture, i actually said that, you know what these technology platforms have done is to encourage the worst of human nature. that is what spreads fastest and furthest lies, least with anger and hate. and that creates emergent human behavior that i mean it, we don't want this for a future. you just saw, dimitri and i, in oslo, accepting the nobel prize in december and 4 months after that happened. russia invaded ukraine. dimitris news organization is no longer publishing in russia. i and we are facing our own problems here. right. another saw here?

absolutely. maria. another saw here which comes from a we cameras who's watching us both right now. he said before the philippines did have media freedom. but now that marcos is empower, definitely there's going to be less freedom of the media and for journalists that is with crumbs prediction. you said kind of let see her age are. but the idea of that this philippines hasn't always been like this when. when did it change? 1972 was when the father of our president today declared martial law and stayed in power for almost 21 years, essentially controlling me. yet that is the 1st step of any, any one who wants to gain power in a country. i worked in the what was then the government station and, and these were sorry, not in 1972 and i said you would have been a major. it was

a $19716.00 out of tall quantity thing about it. yeah. what i learned in 1986 when i came back as every time there was a coup attempt, they always went for the media for the that broad get for the broadcast journalism . rachel, the 1st step of anyone wanting power is control information. and that is part of the reason i think we're under threat, and i think that it's a combination of getting rid of the impunity that is happening in the virtual world . because this concept that there's a difference between the virtual world and the real world really needs to change. we all live. there's only one of us. we live in both the physical and the real world. and what we have seen globally is that when we're, when impunity range online, when there is online violence, there is real world violence. when it's impunity online,

it kills the checks and balances in the real world and kills rule of law. i'm going to bring in another new voice to my conversation. this is regime. she's a mellow reporter for the washington post. i feel that she is bracing for more for more problems to come for journalism in the philippines, his reading president for it and, and mark was it you and yours track record speaks for itself. on the campaign trail, he shied away from debates, uncritical interviews or border sailing him have been off housed, shoved, sometimes deliberately, ignored the while, asking questions. filipino journalists are breezing themselves for more of the same now that he has come into power. the philippine brass face is a serious existential crisis. and the time of this information, which stands to be institutionalized under the marquess presidency. definite b, we're expect thing at babs against your analysts coming from propagandists. troll, sometimes even government officials themselves to continue and maybe even move

offline. oh, i even optimistic for ha, elena scream. oh maria, are you also bracing for the us? well, she has come under intense attack, right? this is what happened. you know, the truth. i guess part of the difference who it's that i've come under the same intense attacks, but i gotta be hopeful, right? i bracing, that's a good word. ah, look, sean crispin cheapie j and regina cabot are from washington post. both these things are, are aligned and we won't know until president marcos takes the 1st steps. his track record isn't great. i mean, you know, in the campaign, as regina pointed out and the attacks online have been horrendous and has actually gotten worse after he was elected, lenny were bred o his, the vice, the former vice president of who ran against him at the tax never stopped. they

continued, and certainly the attacks against me have escalated again. so we'll see. but the last thing i'll say is, the one thing that the marco's administration cannot get away from is history, right? these really tough questions. where's the 10000000000 dollars? your family is accused of stealing questions like this are difficult for president mark ost address. in fact, he switches this way. it's part of the reason he's avoided some of the debates and the journalists questions you asked, you know, what will happen to wrap learned that we were the ones who exposed a lot of these lies in the marquesas. and i think that i hope that the marquess family moves away from vindictive actions. now that they are in power and realizes that they must unite like this is his campaigns at speech right. in his 1st campaign rally, he actually mentioned the word unity 21 times in 20 minutes. well now push comes to

shove, he's in power. please unite us. i want to noise a lot of thing on sentiment that i am saying from out, online audience, who watching right now. while there is support for you in understanding for what journalism is, that seems to be a, a basic misunderstanding that you report on what is happening. you'd not there to support particular political figures. and so there is a certain amount of people being upset with rop la for reporting what they investigate and they find out is, is that an issue with people not understanding journalism will do they not that's a great question, but i think it is all show up the problem when influencers are created in a field of journalism, right, the goal is not propaganda. the goal is journalism. journalism goal is to hold

power to account. we ask those questions and the, the, the critical factor for a good journalist is actually the courage to ask those questions. well, influencers and social media is all about popularity. and, and the of the mistake i think that often gets um, gets passed along is that a journalist is an influencer least never call a journalist an influence, or in this way, right? we'd, we're not in it to be popular. we're not in it to make you feel better. we're in it to hold power to account. that's why we tell our stories. so yes, the short answer to your question is definitely there's a misunderstanding. it was always difficult even before the time of social media, right, to explain standards and ethics and how we do these, our own checks and balances, but now double, triple what group? li. hard. because disinformation,

these information operations are meant to try to use these feelings of nationalism and then to label independent journalists are, as you know, they're against our nation. i how many times in many different countries do i see this in brazil in india, in hungary, in turkey, in the philippines were, journalists are under attack. they are labeled as well. they are not nationalists, right? they don't care about their country. these are, this is just information that is wrong. the reason why journalists care about their nations, the reason why we do our jobs is precisely because we care about the nation. i am just looking online a lot on to wrap la on to day have a look hail on my top. maria knows this already, but i was just checking rapidly, we're still, they're still doing its work. and it still is despite the constant threats we arrested it is soaker to always have you here on the stream and your perspective as

well. we wish you every success with we've your, your, with your mission, to keep telling the truth and report and all of your colleagues in the philippines . thanks for joining us on the screen today. we'll say thank you, want you to, for your comments, opinions, antiques. i will see the next time take ah ah, and under cover 40, especially in exclusive stories, explosive results,

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ah sake that mm hm. and then international anti corruption excellence award boat. now for your hero. ah, hello i mariam timothy and london. a look at our main story. this our budget see crews of battling far as 5 across large ports of southern europe.