Maria Ressa on Journalism and Democracy in the Philippines (re-release)
The FRONTLINE Dispatch
GBH
4.6 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 29 June 2022
⏱️ 31 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On June 30, 2022, the Philippines inaugurates a new president: — Ferdinand Marcos Jr., son of the former President Ferdinand Marcos Sr. who ruled for a time under martial law and was overthrown in 1986. Marcos Jr., also known as Bongbong Marcos, was voted into office in a May 2022 landslide victory alongside vice presidential candidate Sara Duterte, daughter of the outgoing President Rodrigo Duterte.
In 2021, as the race was heating up, FRONTLINE executive producer and host of The FRONTLINE Dispatch Raney Aronson-Rath sat down with Maria Ressa: a winner of the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize, founder of the independent Philippine news site Rappler and the subject of FRONTLINE's January 2021 documentary "A Thousand Cuts." Along with the documentary’s director, Ramona S. Diaz, Ressa talked about disinformation, the importance of press freedom, and what she and Diaz were seeing on the ground in the Philippines during the historic campaign season.
"A Thousand Cuts" is streaming on FRONTLINE’s website, the PBS Video app and FRONTLINE’s YouTube channel. Explore more reporting related to the documentary on FRONTLINE’s website: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/a-thousand-cuts/
Want to be notified every time a new podcast episode drops? Sign up for The FRONTLINE Dispatch newsletter: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/dispatch-newsletter-subscription/
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | To make it is looking more likely that the son of a late dictator will be the next president of the Philippines. |
| 0:05.4 | The people have spoken, they have given Marcos a resounding victory. |
| 0:09.9 | Ferdinand Marcos, Jr., also known as Bong Bong, winning by a landslide. |
| 0:15.1 | The Philippines elected a new president in May. |
| 0:18.3 | Ferdinand Marcos, Jr., son of the country's former dictator. |
| 0:22.3 | And a new vice president, Sarah Duterte, the daughter of outgoing president Rodrigo Duterte. |
| 0:28.0 | The Marcos dynasty returns to power some 36 years after the family fled mass uprising in 1986. |
| 0:35.4 | He concluded his first statement claiming victory, saying, quote, |
| 0:39.1 | Judge me not by my ancestors, but by my actions. |
| 0:42.9 | Last year for the first time since 1935, two journalists won the Nobel Peace Prize. |
| 0:49.2 | One of them was Maria Reza. |
| 0:51.3 | Maria Reza uses freedom of expression to expose abuse of power, use of violence, |
| 0:59.4 | and growing authoritarianism in her native country, the Philippines. |
| 1:05.2 | Reza was a subject of front lines documentary, A Thousand Cuts, |
| 1:09.2 | directed by Ramona S Diaz. |
| 1:11.7 | The film tells the story of Duterte's war on the press and how Reza and her staff |
| 1:17.0 | at the independent New State Rappler were targeted. |
| 1:20.4 | The film recently won a Peabody Award. |
| 1:22.9 | Today we're re-releasing a conversation I had in December 2021 with Reza and Diaz |
| 1:28.2 | about the documentary. |
| 1:30.0 | We discussed disinformation, the importance of press freedom, |
| 1:33.6 | and what Reza and Diaz were seeing on the ground |
... |
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 2025.