Maria Ressa's Background
- Bailey Militar
- Sep 8, 2020
- 2 min read
Born in Manilla, Philippines in 1963, Maria Ressa moved to the United States with her mother at the age of 10 after her father passed away when she was just 1. Her mother left to the US and laid down roots in New Jersey after remarrying an American.
At 10, Maria rejoined her mother and landing in Toms River, Maria went to Toms River high school and went on to attend the prestigious Princeton University. There, Ressa earned cum laude with a degree in English and a minor in theatre. Her senior thesis entitled Sagittarius earned her a Fulbright Fellowship at the University of the Philippines Diliman to study political theatre.
Ressa then forged an impressive career at CNN, while co-founding Probe in 1987, an independent production company. Serving as Chief Bureau of Manila and eventually becoming the lead investigative reporter in Asia, she specialized in reporting terrorist networks. Doing a tremendous job in investigating and bringing to light this highly sensitive topic area, Ressa led CNN’ Jakarta Bureau from 1995-2005.
Working and investigating the rise of terrorism (especially in Southeast Asia at the time), Maria authored two books on such topic (provide link). Around this time, Maria started a facebook page called MovePH which evolved into the well-known Filipino news agency Rappler in 2012. From its creation, Rappler has earned national and international accolades, establishing Maria as a leader in the journalism world.
Despite Maria’s status and career as an excellent journalist and reporter, she was slammed with a cyber libel complaint and was arrested in 2018. Her arrest sparked outrage in the international community, specifically over the actions of President Duterte. Although Maria remains technically free today thanks to successfully posting bail, her situation sets a dangerous precedent for journalistic freedom and remains at the mercy of the Duterte regime. Our goal is to spread awareness of the situation in the Philippines and establish Maria Ressa as a household name.