The mystery surrounding the financier of Rappler founder Maria Ressa who American business news channel CNBC revealed recently to have commissioned high-profile law firm Covington & Burling to launch a campaign against the administration of President Rody Duterte leads to powerful forces which seek to undermine the government.

“Detractors of Rody appear to have a wellspring of resources which is the reason for the unending assaults despite their evident realization that they are going against public sentiment.

One of the major investors in Rappler is North Base Media owned by billionaire speculator George Soros, who is also believed behind many of the richly-funded democracy efforts in Asia, including the Hong Kong protests which is turning violent by the day.

Among the institutions that China is blaming for fanning the protests in the special administrative region is the American National Endowment for Democracy which has strong links with Soros through his Open Society Foundations.

Imelda Nicolas Lewis, a known Liberal Party financier and who President Rody Duterte tagged as having funded efforts to destabilize his administration, is an advisory board member of the foundation.

Another key financier of Rappler is liberal billionaire eBay founder Pierre Omidyar, who is intricately linked to Soros through their technology and media investments.

Omidyar’s nonprofit Omidyar Network funds the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN) hosted by the Poynter Institute for Media Studies.

IFCN has partnered with Facebook to help determine whether certain stories should be flagged as “disputed.”

Poynter’s IFCN is funded by Soros’ Open Society Foundations in which Omidyar Network is a partner on many projects, mostly involving liberal causes.

Rappler, in the same manner, is a Facebook “fact checker” in the Philippines, resulting in thousands of pro-Duterte accounts being deleted.

The agenda goes beyond Rappler, it seems. Soros has huge influence in the International Criminal Court (ICC) at The Hague in which Rody faces unfounded “crimes against humanity” charges courtesy of coup plotter Antonio Trillanes IV.

Soros’ foundation infuses huge amounts to the ICC as part of its Justice Initiative grant recipients.

Open Society, in 19 March 2008, wrote the Justice Initiative works closely with the ICC, “helping it function as efficiently and effectively as possible. Among other activities, the Justice Initiative assists local human rights advocates in gathering and presenting information of use to the ICC, pursues advocacy and public education with governments to secure support for the ICC, and contributes to building the capacity of ICC staff on a range of issues.”

The Soros organization also directly funded the International Criminal Tribunal during the prosecution of the former Yugoslavian President Slobodan Milosevic.

Milosević was indicted for crimes during the Kosovo war and charged with violating international humanitarian law on five counts during the trial that lasted from 1 January to 20 June 1999. Milosević was found dead in his cell on 11 March 2006.

The Court is affiliated with the United Nations but Soros largely directed the lobbying campaign that led to its creation in 2002 to 2003.

The three primary funders of the ICC are Soros, the United Kingdom’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the European Union’s European Instrument for Democracy and Human Rights, whose initiatives are enmeshed with and co-managed by Soros.

The detractors of Rody, thus, appear to have a wellspring of resources which is the reason for the unending assaults despite the critics’ realization that they are going against public sentiment, which remains in great part with Rody.

Containing China seems to be the bigger picture in the campaign as the ultimate goal is to remove popular leaders in Asia who have an ambivalent stand on the primacy of the United States and have close relations with the Asian superpower.