“Given that these lobbyists she contracted are foreign, then these are mostly for prosecuting a public relations war and publicity campaign where the first and perhaps the final victims… would be innocent Filipinos.

There are some things she shares with Rodrigo Duterte. She is diminutive. Duterte’s political stature is much taller than his below-average height.

She is dark skinned. Duterte’s burnt complexion reflects his roots. His ethnicity clearly shows. He is a Filipino. Her hairstyle is appropriately short, its color, jet black. Duterte’s is likewise, closely cropped and perpetually kept. She speaks with an accent, indeterminate, mimicking a Tower of Babel hodgepodge influenced by her chemistry of multi-citizenships — a hybrid, then American, and then subsequently, according to some, a Filipino. So does the President speak with an accent. Duterte’s is distinctly and thickly a Filipino’s. No one can accuse him of being less.

As we attempt to describe more, the parallelisms slowly fade and we begin to see emerging differences gradually coming into focus even where these might be speckled, dark and ominous for one, while surprisingly ethereal for another. At first blush, one likes to paint a self-portrait of an elitist cosmopolitan intellectual while the other remains an unadorned, unpretentious down-home country mouse. Ironically where falsehoods and affectations found imagery, opposites apply. One reeks rancid, the other is profoundly resplendent. One, afflicted with classic foreign mentality. The other, a patriot.

Recently differences have come to a head.

Accused tax fraud, securities and corporate ownership and control manipulator and libel peddler Maria Ressa must be so desperate. Or, she’s simply being true to her nature and her foreign mongrelized pedigree.

Knowing that foreign legal counsel are prohibited from practicing law in the Philippines, Ressa, in defying and indeed, mocking Philippine law and its potency, has nevertheless employed foreigners to serve “as part of an international team of lawyers representing (her),” and advice “on US litigation options, the US policy environment, and build(ing) awareness within the business and non-governmental organization community of Ms. Ressa’s (and Rappler’s) position.”

The foregoing and what follows were quoted verbatim from an 22 August 2019 press release issued by a US lobby group contracted by Ressa to join a team comprised of high-profile counsels “led by Amal Clooney and Caoilfhionn Gallagher QC, barristers at Doughty Street Chambers in London, working alongside barristers Can Yeginsu and Katherine O’Byrne.”

Note the prose of the lobby group’s press release. Note their ominous and veiled threat charged against those Philippine agencies simply enforcing Philippine law. What exactly do “US litigation options” mean and from what perspective will “building awareness within the business and non-governmental organization community” emanate given that, for the most part, its government agencies protecting the interests of the Filipino people and the Philippine constitution who have hailed Ressa to court?

Because these agencies represent the law and in effect the interests of the public, then, pray tell, who’s higher interests might be served by these paid foreign lobbyists?

She is pouring the millions the enemies of the government provide, not directly into her local and foreign defense team as that would again violate Philippine law and sovereignty given the nature of the corporate taxation, ownership and control of the most substantive cases she faces, but, given that these lobbyists she contracted are foreign, then these are mostly for prosecuting a public relations war and publicity campaign where the first and perhaps the final victims of such self-indulgent assault against duly constituted, elected and constantly validated authority would be innocent Filipinos supportive of their government. Ressa is not defending herself. She is undermining our government.

One of the millennial developments in modern politics is the employment of social media not only in forming public opinion but as a weapon. While propaganda achieves the same, modern media with its accesses to local and foreign political powers weaponizes it into an ideal mass-based killing machine.

If Ressa were truly innocent of the charges filed against her our justice system ensures she will get what she deserves. The Supreme Court, in no small way and in no uncertain terms, has recently reaffirmed its independence from partisan politics. It behooves us to trust and have faith in our own institutions whose duties are first and foremost in the Filipino’s interest.