Maria Ressa, Greta Thunberg

Thunberg’s selection sets a bad example which other youngsters in the world will try to emulate. Her citation will give young people everywhere the wrong signals.

The youth of the world are getting the wrong signals, and the wrong examples.

Last year, Time magazine selected several controversial journalists as the periodical’s “Persons of the Year.” One of them was Maria Ressa, the chieftain of Rappler, a Philippine online news site.

Time called Ressa a champion of press freedom supposedly because President Rodrigo Roa Duterte has been persecuting her for her anti-administration reports in Rappler. It was made to appear that to get back at Ressa, President Duterte orchestrated the filing of libel and tax evasion cases against her.

The magazine also insinuated that President Duterte wanted Rappler closed down because he directed the nation’s corporate regulator to investigate the participation of foreigners in Rappler’s operations.

Exploiting that misplaced accolade from Time, Ressa cleverly reinvented herself as a victim of the Duterte administration, one whose only fault was to believe in press freedom.

Ressa’s pompous line was bought by the directionless political opposition and a few local high society names whose nefarious influence in government under ex-President Benigno Aquino III was aborted when the no-nonsense Duterte assumed the presidency.

Many students also fell for the Time yarn about Ressa. They simply assumed that Ressa was telling the truth. Had they checked the facts, they would have seen through the Ressa charade.

The truth of the matter is that a businessman, and not President Duterte, sued Ressa for libel for a news story featured in Rappler. Duterte was not even the president when the subject of that story came about.

Rappler is being investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission for accepting foreign investments. Under the Constitution, foreigners are not allowed to own and manage mass media in the Philippines.

In other words, Ressa is using press freedom to hide the anomalies now hounding her.

If last year’s Time citation for Ressa was a bad choice, this year’s selection is even worse.

On 12 December 2019, Greta Thunberg, a 16-year old climate activist from Sweden, was named 2019 Time Person of the Year. She is the youngest individual to be so selected.

Al Gore, ex-Vice President of the United States and a pioneer climate activist, sent a self-serving congratulatory statement to his fellow climate activist.

Praises from Gore and others only underscore popular but reckless fascination for daring youngsters without first checking if such juveniles are exemplar in the first place.

Thunberg’s selection sets a bad example which other youngsters in the world will try to emulate. Her citation will give young people everywhere the wrong signals.

She started her climate activism at age 15 by skipping school every Friday to demonstrate outside the Swiss Parliament. Under sane conditions, skipping classes one day every week is a bad example for youngsters, especially if such truancy is rewarded with international fame.

Time rewarded Thunberg for skipping school, and gave truant students worldwide a seemingly valid excuse to skip classes, as long as they demonstrate outside their country’s legislature.

The age of 16 is still an age of immaturity. Thunberg has already shown the world how an immature person reacts to international fame.

A day after she learned about her Time citation, Thunberg declared in a speech to young activists in Turin, Italy that “politicians should be put against the wall,” an expression suggesting execution by gunfire. When critics scored her remark as a call for violence, Thunberg said that in the Swedish language, the phrase meant “putting someone on the spot with tough questions.”

Thunberg has been diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome, an autism spectrum disorder associated with high intelligence and impaired social skills, manifested by a problem with anger management. Thunberg is actually proud of her disorder and calls it “a super power.”

Since Thunberg is supposed to be very intelligent, she was well aware of the import of her statement that “politicians should be put against the wall.” As it is, there is already something dangerous about her.

United States President Donald Trump got it right when he called Thunberg’s selection “ridiculous.”

At the end of the day, Time’s selection of Ressa and Thunberg should not be surprising. After all, Time once chose Adolf Hitler its “Man of the Year.”