As a fellow Filipino journalist, I was inspired by the news that the Rappler founder had won the Nobel peace prize
For the first time, a Filipino person, Maria Ressa, has been awarded the Nobel peace prize – “a win for Filipinos, for journalists, and for the global fight to uphold press freedom,” as her colleague Lian Buan puts it.
Ressa, the co-founder and chief executive of the news site Rappler, shares the prize with the Russian journalist Dmitry Muratov in recognition of their individual activism and relentless fights for press freedom. She is a symbol of courage in light of the human rights situation in the Philippines. Since the president, Rodrigo Duterte, took office in 2016, even residents with no link to drugs have been touched by the thousands of extrajudicial killings that have taken place. According to Human Rights Watch, during the Covid lockdown between April and July 2020, the country saw the number of killings increase by more than 50%.
Rachel Obordo is a community journalist for the Guardian