Rappler’s scheme was an attack on the Constitution and our nationhood

Rappler was given a whole year and opportunity to respond to the allegations, with Ressa herself appearing in meetings with SEC investigators, who were even so patient as to acquiesce to her last-minute requests for postponement “for personal reasons.”

By taking P50 million from two US media outfits—even from one notorious in the world for destabilizing a Ukrainian government the US didn’t like—Rappler attacked our Constitution. It undertook a scheme that would have opened the doors to foreign control of an institution crucial to developing our sense of nationhood: media.

Rappler actually functioned as a tool of the Aquino regime. It was set up in 2011, when the Yellow Cult realized that in its ambition to completely control Filipinos’ minds, their hold of traditional media, through the two dominant TV networks and through the Philippine

DailyInquirer and PhilippineStar, was not enough, especially in the new social-media world emerging.

Cyber-world

the cyber-world: Rappler became its principal vehicle, funded, I was told, not really by its main stockholder on record who is property tycoon Benjamin Bitanga, but by a Spanish-Filipino oligarch known to be close to Ressa and to Aquino.

Rappler never had a single news article or opinion piece critical of Aquino and his regime.

In just the first few months of the new administration, it became so stridently anti-Duterte, spinning news stories to portray him as a coldblooded killer. It even manufactured - ecuted by the police in its war against of Duterte’s rule.

- ings” so far cited by foreign media and even in Facebook posts, such as one that became viral for the number of netizens which criticized it.

Although Rappler accumulated at how much of a money-guzzler it was, as its losses amounted to P200 million by that time.

This isn’t at all surprising. Rappler’s following was not due to its devices. In order to appear to have millions of “followers,” its two very knowledgeable techies, chairman Nolledo, employed—at astronomical prices—state-of-the-art technology.

For instance, it reportedly contract and adopt its online postings to top (changed frequently) so that Rappler’s search results. Most Rappler readers until recently didn’t even know that Rappler captured the ISP addresses of anyone viewing its website, which

Oligarchic funders

As early as late 2014 though, Rappler’s oligarchic funders had become worried that with the scandals plaguing the Aquino government, the chances of Aquino’s sidekick were not good. They decided not to throw in anymore money to the company, which even risked their discovery as its funders.

According to the SEC decision itself, it was Rappler president Maria Ressa (probably tapping the anti-Duterte network centered reportedly on New York billionaire Loida Nicolas Lewis) who asked for funding from North Base Media and Omidyar Network.

North Base Media is reportedly who gave $14 billion to his so-called Open Society Foundations which espouse the US views on democracy around the world.

Omidyar Network though is the more controversial funder. Respected investigative journalists in the US and Europe have alleged that this entity, funded by E-bay founder Pierre Omidyar, funded several of that conspired to oust through violent protests the pro-Russia President Victor Yanukovych in February 2014. (My column on this, “Rappler funder Omidyar helped topple Ukrainian president in 2014,” ManilaTimes, October 18, 2017.)

It obviously points to a certain mind-set devoid of nationalism for Rappler to get a foreign funder alleged to have destabilized governments elsewhere.

North Base Media and Omidyar’s investments were concealed as “Philippine Depositary Receipts (PDRs),” a document which assures a foreign due its investment in a corporate share, while being technically not the share’s owners. This has been a legal trick used by public-utility companies in which foreign capital is limited by - the constitutional provisions.

Stupid

However, either Ressa or Rappler’s lawyers were so stupid as to have a provision in the PDRs sold to Omidyar Network that made it so obvious to the SEC that the Constitution had been violated.

The SEC found that the PDRs’ documentation had a provision that required Rappler’s stockholders to get the approval of “2/3 of all issued and outstanding PDRs” for major corporate decisions.

“The stockholder has become in effect subservient to the PDR holders. It is neither 100 percent control by the Filipino stockholders, nor is it 0 percent control by the foreign PDR holders,” the SEC decision said. “The Constitution is very clear that there must be no foreign control whatsoever. Anything less than one hundred percent (100%) Filipino control, as stockholder or through any other means, is a violation.”

Ressa or Rappler lawyers apparently admitted that the Omidyar PDRs were in violation of the Constitution that they submitted only last month, or when the SEC decision was to be released, a photocopy of a purported “waiver” of this provision that gave Omidyar veto power over the company.

That was a stupid move though. The SEC said: “The document is a private one, not subscribed before a notary or a Philippine Consulate. It - ber 2017. It is obviously inadmissible, a mere scrap of paper.”

I have always suspected that the Yellow DNA had a strand that made it as stupid as it was arrogant.

NOTE: For the readers’ full information, I am attaching in the internet version of this column the SE C’ s decision in PD F format.