Rappler CEO says SEC decision is ‘political pressure’

Maria Ressa, the chief executive officer of embattled news site Rappler, said on Tuesday that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) decision revoking its certificates of incorporation had nothing to do with foreign ownership restrictions on mass media companies, but rather a form of “political pressure.”

“I don't think this is about PDRs (Philippine Depositary Receipts). I don’t think this is about foreign ownership,” Ressa said in an interview on CNN Philippines.

The Philippine Stock Exchange defines depositary receipt as security grating grants the holder the right to the delivery of sale of the underlying share. PDRs are not evidences or statements nor certificates of ownership of a corporation.

“If you take a look at the government’s own position on foreign ownership, it is right now trying to liberalize telcos to take away any foreign-ownership restrictions,” Ressa noted.

“It’s actually stated that within another year, this was a year ago, they will take away foreign restrictions on media for charter change ... As I have stated that this is about political pressure,” she emphasized.

The SEC said on Monday that Rappler can continue operating as a mass media company because the decision is not yet final and executory.

The Economic Journalists Association of the Philippines decried the SEC decision and labeled it as “a small step to a bigger, darker agenda.”

Presidential spokesperson Harry Roque earlier said that President Rodrigo Duterte had nothing to do with the SEC decision covering certificates of registration of Rappler Inc. and Rappler Holdings Corp.

Ressa, however, claimed there was someone “who was running the SEC on a daily basis for its decision that is adverse to Rappler."

Asked to identify the person, she “that’s off the record. What we know is that this is political and if it wasn’t this, it would be something else. There is a strong move to shutdown Rappler.”

Ressa also acknowledge SEC for transparency when the regulator put on record that it was the Office of the Solicitor General that prompted the probe on Rappler’s ownership structure.

According to the SEC, Rappler welcomed Omidyar Network—which the media organization said is the fund created by eBay founder and entrepreneur Pierre Omidyar and his wife Pam—as an investor in the online mass media outlet.

The SEC said Omidyar caused the insertion of certain provisions that assure control over other PDR holders and over corporate policies of Rappler Inc. and its alter ego Rappler Holdings.

Ressa insisted that PDRs issued to foreign investors are not shares, saying that PDR holders “can’t tell the company what to do. They can’t be on any board, they can’t be involved in operation, they can’t vote, they can’t be involved in policy-making.”

The National Union of Journalists of the Philippines said it supports Rappler and “all other independent media outfits that the state has threatened and may threaten to shut down.”

Read the full SEC decision. —Ted Cordero/VDS, GMA News