Vicente Castelo Sotto III, professionally known as Tito Sotto and also known as Tito Sen or Tito XN, is a Filipino politician, actor, entertainer and athlete who served as the 23rd Senate President from 2018 to 2022. Before that, he had two stints each as Senate Majority Leader and Senate Minority Leader. He served a total of four terms in the Senate: 1992 to 2004 and 2010 to 2022, tying the record for the longest-serving Senator with Lorenzo Tañada and Franklin Drilon. In between his stints in the Senate, he led the Dangerous Drugs Board for a year. He became the Vice Mayor of Quezon City from 1988 to 1992, and unsuccessfully ran for vice president in the 2022 elections as Panfilo Lacson's running mate.
Maria Angelita Ressa is a Filipino and American journalist. She is the co-founder and CEO of Rappler. She previously spent nearly two decades working as a lead investigative reporter in Southeast Asia for CNN. She is a Professor of Professional Practice in the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University and has been a Distinguished Fellow at Columbia's new Institute of Global Politics since fall of 2023.
Sonshine Media Network International (SMNI), also known by its legal name Swara Sug Media Corporation (SSMC), is a Filipino broadcast media arm of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ (KJC) led by the Filipino televangelist Apollo Quiboloy. Based in Davao City and Makati, it operates a network of radio and television broadcasting stations.
Mass media in the Philippines consists of several types of media: television, radio, newspapers, magazines, cinema, and websites.
Patricia Chanco Evangelista is a Filipina trauma journalist and documentary filmmaker based in Manila, whose coverage focuses mostly on conflict, disaster and human rights. She is a multimedia reporter for online news agency Rappler and is a writer-at-large for Esquire magazine. Her first book, Some People Need Killing, came out in 2023.
Rappler is a Filipino online news website based in Pasig, Metro Manila, the Philippines. It was founded by 2021 Nobel Peace Prize laureate Maria Ressa along with a group of fellow Filipino journalists as well as technopreneurs. It started as a Facebook page named MovePH in August 2011 and evolved into a website on January 1, 2012.
Protests against Former President Rodrigo Duterte escalated on November 18, 2016, following Duterte's support of the burial of the late president Ferdinand Marcos. These series of protests are mostly conducted by progressive groups and other opposing figures mainly due to the ongoing war on drugs, the declaration of martial law in Mindanao, and employment issues such as contractual terms being applied by companies and inflation which occurred due to the passage of the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion Law. Other causes of the protests include the government's response to the COVID-19 pandemic in the country, the passage of the Anti-Terrorism Act of 2020, and the shutdown and franchise denial of ABS-CBN.
Vera Files is a non-profit online news organization in the Philippines, known for its institutionalized role in fact-checking false information in the Philippines, and as one of the news organizations most prominently targeted by intimidation and censorship due to its critical coverage of the Philippine government. It is part of the International Fact-Checking Network of the Poynter Institute and is one of Facebook's two Philippine partners in its third-party fact-checking program.
Rey Joseph "RJ" Pengson Nieto, known also by his alias Thinking Pinoy, is a Filipino blogger and opinion columnist. He writes an op-ed column for the Manila Bulletin and also owns a blog site, where he publishes his opinions on Filipino politics. A well-known and vocal supporter of Rodrigo Duterte, he has drawn controversies and faced legal proceedings for allegations of libel and spreading disinformation, as well as his counter-criticisms against he and the administration's critics.
2019 in the Philippines details events of note that have occurred in the Philippines in 2019.
In the Philippines, red-tagging is the labeling of individuals or organizations as communists, subversives, or terrorists, regardless of their actual political beliefs or affiliations. It is a type of harassment and has pernicious effects on its targets. Red-tagging has been practiced by security forces, government officials and shills.
2020 in the Philippines details events of note that have occurred in the Philippines in 2020.
The shutdown of ABS-CBN broadcasting arose from the lack of renewal of Philippine media network ABS-CBN's congressional broadcast franchise. The disputes between the administrations of Presidents Benigno Aquino III and Rodrigo Duterte and the media conglomerate arose over the terms and conditions of the franchise renewal agreement. Amid the controversy, the Congress of the Philippines, the country's legislature, was unable to renew the franchise before its expiration date. The congressional franchise expired on May 4, 2020, while the Philippines was dealing with the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and the enhanced community quarantine in Luzon. The next day, exercising constitutional powers, the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) issued a cease-and-desist order demanding ABS-CBN cease all of its free TV and radio broadcasting operations immediately. ABS-CBN complied with the government order and shut down all of its radio stations and free television channels later that day. On June 30, 2020, the NTC released two alias cease-and-desist orders against ABS-CBN TV Plus and Sky Direct.
People of the Philippines v. Santos, Ressa and Rappler (R-MNL-19-01141-CR), also known as the Maria Ressa cyberlibel case, is a high-profile criminal case in the Philippines, lodged against Maria Ressa, co-owner and CEO of Rappler Inc.. Accused of cyberlibel, Ressa was found guilty by a Manila Regional Trial Court on June 15, 2020.
2021 in the Philippines details events of note that have occurred in the Philippines in 2021. The COVID-19 pandemic, which largely defined 2020, continued into 2021.
Ma. Salvacion Espina Varona, more popularly known as Inday Espina-Varona is a Filipina journalist. She is the former Head of Regions for Rappler. She was formerly a senior contributing editor and a writer for ABS-CBN Integrated News & Current Affairs.
Jose Jaime Espina, also known as Nonoy, was a Filipino journalist who was a co-founder of the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP), of which he was later the chair from 2018 until 2021. An advocate for freedom of the press, Espina primarily reported on community issues impacting Filipinos, including the communist armed conflict, human rights issues, internal displacement, and the conflict in Mindanao.
2022 in the Philippines details notable events that occurred in the Philippines in 2022. The COVID-19 pandemic, which largely defined the preceding two years, continued into 2022.
2023 in the Philippines details notable events that occurred in the Philippines in 2023.
