Maria Ressa, Duterte & the Fight for the Free Press
The FRONTLINE Dispatch
GBH
4.5 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 12 June 2020
⏱️ 26 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Days before an expected verdict in her trial, Philippine journalist Maria Ressa speaks out about reporting on President Rodrigo Duterte’s brutal drug war — and then becoming a high-profile target of his government’s crackdown on the press. Â
As she faces potential prison time on cyber libel charges, the co-founder and CEO of the independent Philippine news site Rappler tells FRONTLINE how she’s preparing, discusses her reporting on Duterte, and says that her conviction about what she does is undaunted: “I'm just walking forward, step by step by step, certain in the values and the principles that we are following and knowing that we are doing the right thing.”
For more on Duterte’s drug war, watch FRONTLINE’s On the President’s Orders. And for more from Ressa, read FRONTLINE’s interview with her for The Facebook Dilemma, in which she discusses her reporting on how Duterte weaponized the platform to target his critics and spread disinformation. Plus: Stay tuned for the forthcoming documentary A Thousand Cuts, featuring Ressa’s story, which will see a summer theatrical release and a fall FRONTLINE broadcast.Â
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | The Frontline Dispatch is made possible by the Abrams Foundation, |
| 0:03.6 | committed to excellence in journalism, |
| 0:05.6 | and by the Frontline Journalism Fund, with major support from John and Joanne Hagler. |
| 0:10.8 | Support for Frontline Dispatch comes from the Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center. and when you hear the word cancer their team is ready learn more at mass general |
| 0:24.4 | or slash cancer. So no qualms about killing killers? Yes of course I I must admit |
| 0:32.0 | they have killed. |
| 0:34.0 | Three months early on, I killed about three people. |
| 0:40.0 | That's journalist Maria Reza interviewing Rodrigo Duterte back in 2015 before he became |
| 0:47.2 | president of the Philippines. She's been at the forefront of covering Duterte |
| 0:51.6 | and his brutal crackdown on drugs and she's now facing forefront of course |
| 0:57.0 | front of covering Duterte and his brutal crackdown on drugs and she's now facing criminal |
| 0:55.3 | liable charges related to her work. So now of course people still speculate |
| 1:01.0 | that there is a possibility you would still run for president |
| 1:04.4 | that it's possible to replace that. |
| 1:06.4 | Well, they say that I am disqualified. |
| 1:08.1 | I hope I'm disqualified. |
| 1:09.6 | I'm telling the Filipino people, I told you to avoid me |
| 1:14.0 | what echo it's gonna be bloody |
| 1:17.0 | Maria has become one of the most prominent journalists in the world |
| 1:21.0 | we first spoke to her for our documentary The Facebook |
| 1:24.0 | dilemma back in 2018 and we're featuring her in an upcoming film by |
| 1:29.5 | Director Ramona Diaz a thousand cuts. I got the chance to talk to Maria from her home in the |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from GBH, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of GBH and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.