[Rappler’s Best] Their day in court

It’s yet another week of parties and lunches and traffic woes as we enter the peak of the Christmas season. We journalists received last week a wonderful gift wrapped in million damages in favor of Atom Araullo and against his tormentors, red-taggers Lorraine Badoy and Jeffrey Celiz.

In what’s been described as a “game-changing” decision, Quezon City Regional Trial Court Branch 306 Judge Dolly-Rose Bolante ordered Badoy and Celiz to pay Araullo P2.080 million in damages and lawyers’ fees to compensate for the consequences of their “red-tagging” activities on Atom’s “personal life and…career as a journalist.”

The verdict came seven months after the Supreme Court (SC) defined “red-tagging” as a threat against a “person’s constitutional right to life, liberty, and security,” and more than a year after Atom filed the lawsuit against them. 

• Red-tagging has been the main weapon of Badoy, Celiz, retired general Antonio Parlade, and their cohort against critics of their patron, then-president Rodrigo Duterte. They were afforded massive platforms: the notorious SMNI channel of detained Pastor Apollo Quiboloy and a task force that is funded by taxpayers’ money to run after alleged communists through means foul and fair.
• In February this year, the SC punished Badoy with a fine and indirect contempt over her threats against a Manila judge, who had dismissed a petition declaring the Communist Party of the Philippines a terrorist organization.
• In 2023, the Ombudsman also reprimanded Badoy and Parlade for red-tagging, a slap on the wrist considering the extent of their lies and the damage they caused on the safety and reputation of activists and journalists.

Indeed, it’s been a year of comeuppance for the Duterte army that gave us hell for six years, and counting. Quiboloy, who ran SMNI and was on America’s wanted list, is in jail. The House of Representatives quad committee has wrapped up its probe into the drug war, where top police officials have confirmed that kill orders for suspected drug users were institutionalized by Duterte. The International Criminal Court has advanced its probe into the former president, appealing for “direct witnesses” to provide information. Vice President Sara Duterte, once untouchable, faces two impeachment complaints — a process that may not see fruition before the May 2025 elections. 

Remember Philippine politics’ lowlights and highlights? Take this quiz. 

The Philippine situation is beginning to look benign when ranged against the turmoil in South Korea; the political instability in France; the Syrian rebels’ victory that forced strongman Bashar al-Assad to flee to his patron Russia; the one-of-a-kind annulment of election results in Romania; and the killing in broad daylight of an insurance firm CEO in Manhattan, among others. 

And, of course, January 20 is the day Donald Trump will take his oath as the 47th president of the United States, with Mexico, Canada, China, and the entire European Union anxious about what threats and promises he’d keep. Read more about the other elections that rocked the world this year.

But Manila’s political calisthenics cannot — and should not — mask the stench of high prices, poor access to health and education, and mismanagement both at the lowest and highest echelons of power.

• Inflation has not eased, with wages and our pockets not seeing any relief soon. 
• Access to health services is threatened anew, as reflected in the 2025 national budget passed by the bicameral committee of both houses of Congress (which President Marcos has not yet signed off on) that provides zero subsidy for PhilHealth, the country’s national health insurance. Are the lawmakers out of their minds, asked Rappler’s resident economist JC Punongbayan in this piece. 
• The same lawmakers cut the budget of the education department, already reeling from years of mismanagement by previous heads, by P12 billion. 
• Budget watchers are saying that what the lawmakers have approved is so bad and works against the already-marginalized sectors that the President should throw it back to them for review.

Yet, hope we must. Overseas Filipino worker Mary Jane Veloso, who was sentenced to death in Indonesia more than a decade ago, will likely be home for Christmas.

Rappler, too, ends the year with a blowout: Our very own Pia Ranada-Robles, who covered Duterte during those tumultuous years and is now Community lead, is one of The Outstanding Young Men (TOYM) awardees. Congratulations, Pia!

Here’s to a happy Christmas to you and a New Year filled with meaning. We will resume this newsletter on January 6, 2025. – Rappler.com

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The views expressed by the writer are his/her own and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of Rappler.