MANILA, Philippines – On Wednesday, January 18, the Court of Tax Appeals acquitted Rappler Holdings Corporation and Maria Ressa of tax evasion charges filed by the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) in 2018, under the Duterte government.
The court dismissed the BIR’s findings that we profited from raising capital.
It was, after all, a novel case where the BIR singled out Rappler and prosecuted it for raising capital via Philippine Depositary Receipts which other media companies, such as ABS-CBN and GMA Network, had tapped for the same purpose.
For us, this simply means that truth has prevailed. We believe that this would not have been possible without our community of supporters – partners who have stood for press freedom and held the line with us through the years.
This good news also gives us hope as we continue to face other cases lodged against Rappler since 2018. (READ: LIST: Cases vs Maria Ressa, Rappler directors, staff since 2018)
With the acquittal, Rappler is in a stronger position to continue its award-winning, independent journalism and community building to fight online disinformation.
If you want to join Rappler’s community of supporters, here are ways to do this:
- Showing solidarity with any post online using the hashtags #HoldTheLine and #CourageON
- Supporters can directly power our investigative work through a one-off donation to Rappler. No amount is too small for public interest journalism. For details, you may visit donate.rappler.com.
- If you want to become a member of a community and stay updated with other cases and updates from Rappler, we invite you to join Rappler+, our membership program: rappler.com/plus.
From all of us at Rappler, thank you for holding the line with us. – Rappler.com