Who silenced the scientist whose research humiliated China's work in the W. Philippine Sea?

RIP Dr. Kent E. Carpenter, 1936-2026

An American scientist who studied and championed the diversity of the seas of the Philippines and whose research was instrumental in gaining worldwide support for the Philippines' territorial claims in the West Philippine Sea, was found slain in his home in the southern Philippines. 

The international scientific community and Asian American academic circles are reeling from a devastating loss. On July 12, Dr. Kent E. Carpenter—an eminent American marine biologist and long-time Old Dominion University (ODU) professor—was shot and killed inside his home in Sibulan, Negros Oriental, Philippines.

Local authorities have four of six suspects are in police custody. The Phlippine Natinal Police maintaine that robbery is the primary motive behind the killing although speculation of that he was killed because of his work continues to circulate.

What was supposed to be a celebratory final research lap ahead of the planned retirement  of  the 73-year-old has instead plunged his family, colleagues, and local authorities into a murky, high-stakes investigation. Was his death a tragic, random home invasion, or did a lifetime of environmental activism and geopolitical testimony make him a target?

Carpenter’s legendary career was built on a foundation of rigorous American scholarship and a deep, lifelong connection to the Pacific: He earned his Ph.D. in Zoology from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, a world-renowned hub for marine research.

In 1976, he first arrived in the Philippines as a US Peace Corps volunteer. That assignment sparked a 50-year dedication to protecting the archipelago's delicate coral reefs.

Since joining ODU's Department of Biological Sciences in Virginia in 1996, he served as an Eminent Scholar, mentored generations of global researchers, and spearheaded the IUCN Global Marine Species Assessment.

Defining the "Center of the Center"

Carpenter didn’t just study fish; his research fundamentally redefined global conservation and drew international maritime boundaries.

"Dr. Carpenter's contributions to Philippine marine science were profound and enduring," the Philippine Association of Marine Science posted Tuesday on social media.

"As a US Peace Corps volunteer in the 1970s, he worked with the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources and helped train the country's first coral reef science team. His early papers on Philippine coral reef fisheries resources, including his work with National Scientist Angel C. Alcala on muro-ami and kayakas reef fisheries, were landmark contributions that shaped the country's understanding of reef fisheries and the urgent need for science-based management," the statement continued.

In 2005, Carpenter co-authored a landmark study declaring the Verde Island Passage as the absolute "Center of the Center" of global marine shore fish biodiversity. The concentration of about 60% of the world's shoreline species, the water passage is the marine equivalent of the Amazon River basin.

Most notably, Carpenter served as a vital expert witness for the Philippine government during the historic 2016 UN Permanent Court of Arbitration case against China. His scientific testimony provided undeniable, damning evidence of the catastrophic environmental destruction caused by China’s aggressive dredging and island-building in the South China Sea.

Why would someone want Carpenter silenced?

On the night of July 12, three masked men entered Carpenter's home, shooting him in the head while he was watching television. The intruders reportedly fled with a backpack, cash, and his laptop.

While initial local headlines pointed to an opportunistic robbery, the environmental and political weight of Carpenter’s work immediately sparked fears of a targeted execution.

Investigators are currently exploring the possibility that Carpenter's death was result of his research.

Carpenter’s scientific data legally humiliated a global superpower at the Hague. By systematically documenting the destruction of coral reefs by foreign fleets, his work remains a cornerstone of the Philippines’ ongoing maritime claims.

Carpenter was also actively campaigning to have critical habitats, including the Verde Island Passage, designated as UNESCO World Heritage Sites. This protective status directly threatens massive industrial plans—such as liquid natural gas (LNG) terminals, heavy commercial shipping routes, and coastal mega-developments—making him an adversary to powerful corporate syndicates.

The thieves bypassed major valuables to steal his laptop. As an active researcher holding decades of sensitive environmental spatial mapping, illegal fishing tracking, and conservation data, his computer was a literal goldmine of ecological intelligence.

However, the plot has since grown more complicated. The Negros Oriental Police have designated Carpenter’s live-in partner and her sibling as persons of interest. According to reports from ABS-CBN, authorities noted glaring inconsistencies in her statements regarding how the intruders managed to breach the home without signs of forced entry.

View from the edge

"Dr. Carpenter devoted his life to protecting the Philippines' marine heritage. We owe it to him to honor that legacy by continuing his work and demanding justice for his tragic and untimely death," concluded the statement from the Philippine Association of Marine Science.

Whether this tragedy was a geopolitical hit, an environmental silencing, or a domestic plot masked as a robbery, the world has lost a giant of marine conservation. As the Filipino and scientific communities demand a transparent investigation, all eyes remain on local Philippine authorities to deliver swift justice for Carpenter.

EDITOR'S NOTE: For additional commentary, news, views and chismis from an AANHPI perspective, follow me on Threads, on X, BlueSky or at the blog Views From the Edge. If you find this perspective interesting, please repost.

Kevin McCarthy's announces his resignation; gains a "pants on fire" grade re: Philippines and Pacific island nations

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California Congressman Kevin McCarthy in debate form.

Just before he announced his resignation from Congress this morning, former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., showed his ignorance about the Philippines and the island nations in the Pacific Ocean when he said that the United States never sought land after winning wars.

McCarthy announced in a Wall Street Journal op-ed on Wednesday two months after being kicked out as Speaker of the House by a handful of ultra-conservative Republicans and the Democrats' 213 members. He would give up his seat by the end of this year.

McCarthy’s decision will narrow the House GOP’s shaky slim majority, which just last week got smaller after the expulsion of ex-Rep. George Santos of New York. 

The GOP's eight seat majority could possibly narrow to only two if Democrats win in a series of special elections slated for early next year, including a special election for McCarthy's 20th District in California's Central Valley.

McCarthy made his remarks regarding the United States' supposed largesse on October 28 at the Oxford Union, the 200-year-old debating society at the University of Oxford in England. About a month later he reached a much wider audiene when he uploaded his posts on X and YouTube on Nov. 26.

McCarthy's resignation was expected after he lost the speakership and was essentially powerless within his own party. His decision to leave the House had nothing to do with his erroneous claim.

In the debate, McCarthy said, "In every single war that America has fought, we have never asked for land afterwards, except for enough to bury the Americans who gave the ultimate sacrifice for that freedom we went in for."

There are so many examples to prove him wrong beginning with the land stolen from Native Americans, but we'll point out two glaring examples.

Historians gave Politifact, a project of the Poynter Institute, several examples where McCarthy was just plain wrong in his claim. Among them, they point out:

Spanish-American War, 1898: Under the Treaty of Paris, Spain relinquished claims on Cuba and ceded Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines to the United States. Guam and Puerto Rico remain US territories.

Although Filipinos seeking independence already had Spainish colonial government surrounded in Manila, the US joined with the Filipinos to defeat Spain.

The fighting did not end after Spain surrendered to the US and ignoring the Filipinos' declaration of independence. After that war, members of the Filipino independence movement shifted from fighting Spain to fighting the United States in the Philippine American War.

"It was a brutal affair that the United States won," said Joseph McCallus, an English professor at Columbus State University who has authored several books on the Philippines, including "Forgotten Under a Tropical Sun: War Stories by American Veterans in the Philippines, 1898-1913."

Officially, this second war lasted from 1899 to 1902, he said, but Filipino guerrillas fought on for several years afterward. "With the Filipino independence forces defeated, the United States took control of the entire Philippine archipelago," McCallus said. "In no uncertain terms, it was an unadulterated land grab. Its purpose was to position the United States in the Pacific."

Second Samoan Civil War, 1899: Under the Tripartite Convention of 1899, Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States divided up the Samoan island chain in the Pacific Ocean. The portion the US took is now a US territory, American Samoa.

Trust Territory of the Pacific. Hundreds of islands controlled by Japan passed to the U.S. following World War II as a US trusteeship. After increasing sentiment in the islands for greater independence, the United Nations dissolved the arrangement in 1990. Today, the former trust territory consists of one US territory (the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands) and three entities that are self-governing: (the Federated States of Micronesia, the Republic of the Marshall Islands, and the Republic of Palau.

PolitiFact tried to get a comment from McCarthy's office but there has been no response.

In one sense, McCarthy can't be blamed for his ignorance of history. His scanty knowledge is the result of an educational system that is biased towards White exceptionalism and fails to give a more accurate record of reality.  This distorted view of history reinforces  the world view of white supremacists.

A more balanced teaching of history might teach some humility and understanding of people and cultures that make up America and its place in the world.

McCarthy, one of the few Republican representatives from California, was facing challenges from the Democrats and from his own party if he had decided to run in 2024. The 20th District was seen as a "safe" seat for the GOP if McCarthy remained. With McCarthy's departure, that no longer holds true.

"It is time to pursue my passion in a new arena,” McCarthy said in a video he released Wednesday. “While I will be departing the House at the end of this year, I will never, ever give up fighting for this country that I love so much

EDITOR'S NOTE: For additional commentary, news and views from an AANHPI perspective, follow me at Threads.net/eduardodiok, @DioknoEd on Twitter or at the  blog Views From the Edge.

Free press wins as Maria Ressa acquitted of another trumped up charge

Maria Ressa overjoyed after the court acquits the Filipino American journalist.

Chalk up another win for democracy and the free press in the Philippines.

Nobel laureate Maria Ressa and her online news outlet Rappler were acquitted by the Philippines Regional Trial Court Tuesday (Sept. 12, 2023) on the final criminal tax charge leveled against them by the regime of former President Rodrigo Duterte.

Ressa , 59, had a smile on her face as the judge delivered the acquittal, said AFP news agency. "You gotta have faith," she told journalists after the verdict was rendered.

"The acquittal now strengthens our resolve to continue with the justice system, to submit ourselves to the court despite the political harassment, despite the attack on press freedom," added the Fillipino American journalist Ressa, who spent part of her youth in New Jersey and graduated from Princeton University. She frequently visits family who still reside in New Jersey.

The judgment comes after a legal battle lasting nearly five years. If they had lost the case, Ressa could have been jailed for up to 10 years, while Rappler would have faced a fine.

“This verdict underlines that it is possible for President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to chart a different course to his predecessor Rodrigo Duterte, who waged a relentless campaign of media repression,” said the Hold The Line Coalition Steering Committee, an international coalition of free press advocates.

“We hope this judgment signals a revival of judicial independence in the Philippines after the previous administration’s instrumentalization of the courts as a means to erode press freedom and discredit independent reporting,” the Hold the Line Coalition said.

Ressa and Rappler were charged in connection with an alleged failure to accurately report financial details on their tax return pertaining to an amount of approximately US$ 11,000. But they have already paid twice that amount in bail and travel bonds associated with the charge.

In January, Ressa and Rappler were acquitted of four tax evasion cases before the Court of Tax Appeals in Manila in an emphatic victory.

While the verdict represents another reprieve, Rappler and Ressa, still face a sustained campaign of legal persecution and online violence, with 23 individual cases against them opened by the government since 2018.

Rappler and Ressa have maintained their innocence and continue to fight three other cases, including Ressa’s 2020 conviction on a trumped-up charge of criminal cyber libel, currently in the final phase of appeal before the Supreme Court. In that case alone, Ressa faces a seven-year jail sentence.

In an historic precedent, Rappler was officially issued a shutdown order in June 2022, reinforcing an earlier decision to revoke the outlet’s license to operate. The order was the first of its kind for the issuing agency and for Philippine media. The threat of shutdown lingers.

“This is a victory not just for Rappler but for everyone who has kept the faith that a free and responsible press empowers communities and strengthens democracy,” Rappler said in a statement.

“As an immediate next step, we call on the government to abandon all remaining cases against Rappler and Ressa, and in doing so, put a long-overdue end to their persecution,” in a statement issued by the Coalition.

EDITOR'S NOTE: For additional commentary, news and views from an AANHPI perspective, follow me at Threads.net/eduardodiok, @DioknoEd on Twitter or at the blog Views From the Edge.

Int'l Women's Day: Social media attacks against journalist Maria Ressa appear coordinated

Maria Ressa (center) was arrested in Manila as soon as she got off the airplane.

As people in the United States know too well from the last four years of the Trump presidency, damaging the credibility of the news media with accusations of "fake news" is a prime strategy for sowing disinformation and chaos.

Press freedom in the Philippines, once the most free-wheeling and aggressive in Asia, has been under attack since the days of the dictator Ferdinand Marcos.

Under the regime of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, at the center of the media storm is Maria Ressa, a Filipino American journalist who  returned to the Philippines to use her pen to rail against the human rights abuses of the Duterte presidency.

Ressa lives at the core of a very 21st century war against press freedom, especially against outspoken women journalists. It is a furor of disinformation and attacks - one in which credible journalists are subjected to online violence with impunity; where facts wither and democracies teeter.

"She is not only attacked for being a journalist. She is attacked for being a woman. For the color and texture of her skin. For her American citizenship. And for her sexuality," says the report.

New research released on March 8, which marks International Women’s Day, provides the most comprehensive assessment to date of the online violence against Ressa, reports the Centre for Freedom of the Media , a global research agency for media freedom and maintaining journalistic standards.

The research which was published by the International Centre for Journalists (ICFJ) and conducted by CFOM members Julie Posetti, Diana Maynard and Kalina Bontcheva, consists of a big data analysis “of the torrent of social media attacks on internationally celebrated digital media pioneer Maria Ressa over a five-year period (2016-2021).”

The research “detail[s] the intensity and ferocity of this abuse, and demonstrate[s] how it is designed not only to vilify a journalism icon, but to discredit journalism itself, and shatter public trust in facts”. It is also shown how “[t]hese attacks (…) created an enabling environment for Ressa’s persecution and prosecution in the Philippines” where Ressa “faces a barrage of baseless lawsuits that seek to criminalize her work and expose her to a century in prison” according to Caoilfhionn Gallagher QC, the co-lead of Ressa’s international legal team.

The research further shows how “the furor of disinformation and attacks” targeting the former CNN war correspondent and UNESCO World Press Freedom Prize jury chair Maria Ressa is emblematic of “a very 21st century storm (…) – one in which credible journalists are subjected to online violence with impunity; where facts wither and democracies teeter”.

Key research findings show that: “almost 60% of the attacks on Ressa … extracted from Facebook and Twitter for analysis were designed to undermine her professional credibility and public trust in her journalism”.

Attacks intending to harm Ressa’s credibility or reputation “frequently deployed disinformation tactics and abuse conflating Ressa and her journalism with “fake news” (e.g., “Queen of Fake News”; “LIAR”; “#Presstitute”)”.

Moreover, “[o]ver 40% of the attacks in the combined datasets targeted Ressa at the personal level” and “14% of all abuse and 34% in the category of ‘personal’ attacks against Ressa could be classified as misogynistic, sexist and explicit abuse”.

The research also finds “evidence that some of the attacks on Ressa are coordinated or orchestrated – a hallmark of State-led disinformation campaigns.”

These are the 11 key findings of the case study examining online violence against Ressa:

1. Almost 60% of the attacks on Ressa we extracted from Facebook and Twitter for analysis were designed to undermine her professional credibility and public trust in her journa
2. Credibility or reputation-based attacks frequently deployed disinformation tactics and abuse conflating Ressa and her journalism with “fake news” (e.g., “Queen of Fake News”; “LIAR”; “#Presstitute”).
3. Over 40% of the attacks in the combined datasets targeted Ressa at the personal level - often viscerally.
4. 14% of all abuse and 34% in the category of ‘personal’ attacks against Ressa could be classified as misogynistic, sexist and explicit abuse.
5. The use of abusive memes and manipulated images, which ‘fly under the radar’ of detection, is commonplace.
6. There is evidence that some of the attacks on Ressa are coordinated or orchestrated - a hallmark of State-led disinformation campaigns.
7. Much of the abuse and threats are fueled by President Duterte’s public statements demonizing Ressa and Rappler as criminals, and pro-Duterte bloggers/social media influencers.
8. Lightning rods for attacks include: Rappler’s investigative journalism; Ressa’s reporting and commentary on State-linked disinformation; Ressa’s high-profile media appearances; her industry accolades; and her court appearances.
9. Facebook is the main vector for the online violence Ressa faces. It is also the most used social media site in the Philippines - a country which spends more time online than any other.
10. Both Facebook and Twitter have promised to address the attacks on Ressa, but Facebook has failed dismally to effectively stem the tide of hate against her. Ressa says she feels “significantly safer” on Twitter.
11. For every one comment supportive of Ressa on her Facebook page, there were about 14 comments attacking her.

There is direct evidence that the online violence targeting Ressa has offline consequences. It has created the enabling environment for her persecution, prosecution and conviction. It also subjects her to very real physical danger.

The study identifies key recommendations for action based on the case study of online violence against Ressa. These point to the need for:

• Political actors to be held accountable for inciting violence against women journalists;
• States to review and adapt legal and regulatory frameworks designed to uphold freedom of expression and equality, to ensure they can be applied effectively online as well as offline;
• News organizations to provide integrated digital and physical security, alongside psychological and peer support for women journalists targeted online; for social media companies to create specialist teams to respond swiftly to attacks on women journalists;
• Law enforcement and the judiciary to ensure gender-sensitive and digitally-literate responses to online violence against women journalists.

READ the full report here.

DOJ marks National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month

During Human Trafficking Prevention Month, one of the Justice Department's first cases in 2021 resulted in a life sentence for a Florida man who directed, primarily through online communications and transactions, the sex trafficking of impoverished young children in the Philippines.

Senior U.S. District Judge Virginia Hernandez Covington on Jan. 7 sentenced Christopher John Streeter, 63, to life in federal prison for sex trafficking of a child under the age of 14. Streeter had pleaded guilty on October 15, 2020.

According to court documents, from September 2018 through June 2019, Streeter directly participated in a scheme that sexually exploited children in the Philippines in order to produce child sex-abuse videos for his consumption. Over that period, Streeter communicated and transacted with Philippines-based facilitators to recruit children to engage in sex acts on camera. The child victims — some of whom were as young as 12 and 13 years of age — were particularly vulnerable due to poverty and illness.

Streeter sent payments to the Philippines in exchange for depictions of the victims engaging in sex acts. Streeter received videos and images of children involved in various sex acts that tracked Streeter’s directives. 

One of Streeter’s victims was a 12-year-old girl from Ozamis, Philippines. In 2018 and 2019, Streeter communicated with a Philippine recruiter in Ozamis named Analyn Tababini. On multiple occasions, while in the Tampa Bay area, Streeter paid Tababini to arrange for sex-abuse videos to be made of the victim. The monies covered production costs, including the male abuser, money for the victim, hotel expenses, and a commission for Tababini. In return, Tababini sent Streeter several videos of the abuse suffered by the young girl. 

In addition to working for Streeter, Homeland Security Investigations Transnational National Criminal Investigative Unit in Manila discovered that Tababini has facilitated internet sex shows of minors in exchange for payment from an array of international clientele. 

In a recent, coordinated operation conducted by the Philippine National Police in Ozamis, Philippines, six of Tababini’s child sex-trafficking victims (including Streeter’s 12-year-old victim) were rescued by the Philippine Department of Social Welfare and Development. Philippine authorities also arrested Tababini.

“This morally corrupt individual thought he could circumvent justice because of international borders,” said HSI Tampa Acting Deputy Special Agent in Charge Micah C. McCombs. 

The Philippines victim-rescue operation was conducted by the Philippine National Police (Manila), with assistance from Homeland Security Investigations (Tampa and Manila), U.S. Customs and Border Protection (National Targeting Center), the Philippine National Police Woman and Children Protection Center (Mindanao Field Unit), and the Ozamis City Police Office.

The DOJ, along with local law enforcement agencies, continue to battle this modern day form of slavery. Information on the Department of Justice’s efforts to combat human trafficking can be found at www.justice.gov/humantrafficking.

This reprehensible case was brought to light as the DOJ Friday (Jan. 29) commemorated the 10th annual National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month and declared a continued commitment to combatting human trafficking in all its forms. The fight against human trafficking remains one of the department’s highest priorities, and the department will remain relentless in its efforts to bring traffickers to justice and seek justice for survivors.

Also in 2021, the department successfully convicted a labor trafficker who used debts, threats, abuse, and assaults to compel the victim’s unpaid labor for 10 hours a day, six to seven days a week, in the defendant’s North Carolina nail salon. 

The department also secured a life sentence and over $900,000 in restitution against a Texas sex trafficker who compelled women and girls to engage in commercial sex through violence, isolation, intimidation, and threats.

Human trafficking is a crime that preys on some of the most vulnerable members of our society. It is a crime of exploitation that deprives victims of their rights, freedom, and dignity. Traffickers exploit the vulnerable through forced labor or commercial sex involving children or involving adults subjected to force, fraud, or coercion.

“The Department of Justice is unflagging in its resolve to eradicate human trafficking and pursue justice for those affected by these heinous crimes,” said Acting Attorney General Monty Wilkinson. In fiscal year 2020, the department brought 210 federal human trafficking cases against 337 defendants, and secured 309 convictions.

If you or someone you know is being trafficked, contact local law enforcement or report it to federal law enforcement through the National Human Trafficking Hotline at 1-888-373-7888 or 1-866-347-2423.

TGIF Feature: A Star Wars experience for all

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The two boys featured in the "A Star Wars Experience for All" promo.

This promo for Star Wars was produced in the Philippines but -- wonderfully -- you don't need to understand Tagalog to get the gist of what's going on.

It's Christmas time in the Philippines. In the background you can detect some Christmas music and decorations. The Philippines has the longest Christmas observance in the world. It begins  in September and lasts until January.

Two cute boys are constructing something. We don't know what it is at first. As they rummage around their neighborhood for items, what they're putting together slowly starts to take shape. It's a special seat. It's a plane; a jet. Then it becomes clear, it's a rocket ship.

They are building it for a friend who is introduced two-thirds the way through the two-minute-plus commercial. Their contraption allows her to physically experience a Star Wars movie. 

We don't know until the end why they went to all this trouble and I won't spoil it for you. You have to watch it for yourself. It's OK if you say, "Awww!"

Star Wars: #TheRiseOfSkywalker is due to be released in theaters December 20.

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Reuters news agency win two Pulitzers for its work in Philippines, Myanmar

REUTERS, the London-based news agency, won an unprecedented two Pulitzer prizes for its work in Southeast Asia.

A Filipino journalist was among those who won this year’s prestigious Pulitzer Prize for “relentless reporting” on Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s anti-drugs war.

Manuel “Manny” Mogato, colleagues Clare Baldwin and Andrew R.C. Marshall from international news agency Reuters were cited for their “relentless reporting that exposed the brutal killing campaign behind Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs.”

“It was a team effort. Every one in the Manila bureau did their job but it was months of hardwork and I admired the courage, strength, and perseverance of the team to pursue the drugs war story,” said Mogato, who has been Reuters' political and general news correspondent in Manila for 15 years.

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Manuel Mogato, Reuters' Manila correspondent, won part of a team honored by winning this year's Pulitzer.

Winning a Pulitzer Prize, a recognition for outstanding work, is journalism's highest honor.

“In a year in which many Pulitzers were rightly devoted to U.S. domestic matters, we’re proud at Reuters to shine a light on global issues of profound concern and importance,” Reuters Editor-in-Chief Stephen J. Adler said in an address to the Reuters' newsroom in London.

In the Philippines coverage, the Reuters team “demonstrated how police in the president’s ‘drug war’ have killed with impunity and consistently been shielded from prosecution,” Adler said.

The coverage included a report that revealed how a police anti-drug squad on the outskirts of Manila had recorded an unusually high number of killings. Many members of the squad came from a distant place that was also Duterte’s hometown, where the campaign’s brutal methods originated during his time as mayor there. 

They identified not just new patterns in the killings, but also the top killers, corroborating their findings with months of risky reporting in slums and hostile police stations. The series explored how Philippine police use hospitals to cover up drug-war executions; how a group of police officers from Duterte’s hometown Davao formed the core of a lethal anti-drug unit; and how Duterte targets Philippine children in a bid to widen the drug war. 

The Pulitzer committee recognized the team for their “relentless reporting that exposed the brutal killing campaign behind Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs.”

Mogato, a veteran Filipino journalist who previously worked for the Manila Chronicle before joining Reuters, is the second Philippines-based journalist to win the prestigious journalism award, after Carlos P. Romulo became the first non-American to be given the Pulitzer Prize in Correspondence in 1942.

REUTERS

View the photo gallery of the Myanmar exodus. 

Reuters photographers Adnan Abidi, Mohammad Ponir Hossain, Hannah McKay, Cathal McNaughton, Damir Sagolj, Danish Siddiqui and Soe Zeya Tun were recognized in the category of Feature Photography for their coverage of the mass exodus of the Rohingya people to Bangladesh.

The Rohingyas’ migration from Myanmar is grueling and deadly. Hundreds of thousands of people, wet, caked in mud, exhausted, starving or sick, arrive in a state of panic and need the last of their energy. To document it was a severe challenge to Reuters journalists.  To see a gallery of their photos, click here.

The Pulitzer judges honored the team “for shocking photographs that exposed the world to the violence Rohingya refugees faced in fleeing Myanmar.”

As Reuters garners international praise for its reporting, the news agency has hired human rights attorney Amal Clooney, wife of the actor, to represent them in gaining the release of two its reporters who have been under arrest by Myanmar authorities since Dec. 12, 2017.

Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo have have told relatives they were arrested almost immediately after being handed some rolled up papers at a restaurant in northern Yangon by two policemen they had not met before, having been invited to meet the officers for dinner.

A request to dismiss the case for lack of evidence was denied last week.

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Sunday Read: Phiippines investigating roles of Facebook, Cambridge Analytica in Duterte's election win

Asian  journalists were among the first media to investigate the role of social media in politics with some excellent reporting by the reporters of Rappler. South China Morning Post and ASEAN Today, whose work forms the basis of this compilation.

* * *

WAS THE ELECTION of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte a test case for Cambridge Analytica, the British political consulting firm that helped elect Donald Trump?

Since Rodrigo Duterte became president of the Philippines, I have often wondered why a people -- who faced down tanks to rid themselves of a powerful  decades-long dictator in a bloodless revolution  -- would allow themselves to again be ruled by another strongman.

The answer may be in the palm of one's hand - the everpresent smartphone, which seems to in the hip pocket or purse of everyone in the Philippines -- from the high-powered executives in Makati to the street vendors selling all kinds of knick-knacks and snacks to drivers stalled in traffic jams -- who are, more than likely, checking out their own messages, tweets and instant photos while sitting behind the wheel of their cars.

Philippines National Privacy Commission said Friday (April 13) it sent a letter to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg following statements he's made in front of two U.S. Congressional committees investigating the data breach that may have affected 87 million people worldwide.

"We are launching an investigation into Facebook to determine whether there is unauthorized processing of personal data of Filipinos, and other possible violations of the Data Privacy Act of 2012," an excerpt of the letter sent to Zuckerberg reads.

Six months before Trump upset favorite Hillary Clinton in the U.S. elections, Cambridge Analytica was busy in the Philippines on behalf of the often crude, plain-speaking Duterte, a mayor of a city from the Philippine hinterlands.

Duterte said  Friday it was "insane" for him to hire Cambridge Analytica just to win in the 2016 presidential elections. "Why would I pay those fools from Cambridge [Analytica] to work for my presidential campaign? I would have lost had I done that," Duterte said. 

"Son of a b#@%. Had I paid you? I would have lost. That's not true. That's insane," he exclaimed in his typical forthright style.

Nevertheless, last week the South China Morning Post published a photo of members of Duterte's campaign team dining with Cambridge Analytica CEO Alexander Nix.

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte

In a post by Facebook's Chief Technology Officer Mike Schroepfer on April 4, he said that about 1,175,870 Filipino users may have had their Facebook information improperly shared with Cambridge Analytica, the same firm used a year later in the 2016 presidential campaign of Donald Trump.  

Alexander Nix (remember that name, he comes up later in the post) former CEO of Cambridge Analytica, proudly stated in this year that his firm "ran all of (Donald Trump's) digital campaign" We all know what that led to -- one of the biggest upsets in U.S. political history when Trump beat heavily-favored Hillary Clinton. Nix was forced to resign when he was tape-recorded trying to bribe and entrap a client's opponent with prostitutes. 

The Philippines is only behind the U.S. in terms of the number of people whose data was compromised, according to Rappler.

The Philippines, perhaps the country most plugged into the Internet, was a perfect lab for the consulting firm to try out its online strategies for its client.

A report, called "Digital in 2017," done by social media management platform Hootsuite, showed that Filipinos spend the most time on social media in the world -- an average of 4 hours and 17 minutes per day on social media sites such as Facebook, Snapchat and Twitter. 

The data were based on active monthly user data from social media companies as recent as Jan. 2017.


In comparison, U.S. social media users averaged only 2 hours and 6 seconds per day, according to the report. The least active—the Japanese—logged on to social media an average of 40 minutes per day.


Another way to look at it: Filipinos spend 53 hours on social media in a week, 11 hours more than the global average of 42 hours.

 Half of the Filipino population is active on Facebook, says ASEAN Today.

But, I'm getting ahead of myself. 

Before Cambridge Analytica's Philippine incursion, in 2015 Duterte had already began his own social media assault. He hired Nic Gabunada, a marketing consultant, and gave him a $200,000 budget to generate a strong social media following for his quest for the presidency.

Duterte’s propaganda machine used fake social media accounts to disperse false information. according to ASEAN Today. In the latter half of 2015, pro-Duterte posts and hashtags swept across social media. Four days after he declared his candidacy, over 700 tweets a minute mentioned Duterte. If this was a spike that would naturally occur when breaking news occurs, it would have happened when he initially announced his decision to run.

Filipino social media is saturated with false information and fake accounts, according to Rappler.

Many accounts mentioning Duterte had the same suspicious traits. They had a small number of online friends and used a profile picture which did not belong to them. They also liked pro-Duterte and pro-Marcos groups.

One of them, linked to groups whose members number over 2.8 million as of early October, is a certain "Mutya Bautista", a supposed software analyst at ABS-CBN. She uses the profile picture of pop star Im Yoona of Girl’s Generation, a South Korean Kpop group, and has ties to over 160 groups – the biggest of which is BongBong Marcos United at over 160,000 members, and other overseas Filipino workers groups like Pinoy OFW sa UAE with over 67,000 members.

Rappler checked with ABS-CBN and learned that "Mutya Bautista," who has only 21 friends, was and is not connected with the media giant, which has correspondents and outlets in the U.S.

A young woman called "Lily Lopez" also declared herself to be connected with Xurpas Inc. But she's not. She used as her profile picture the photo of former Miss Korea and now actress Kim Sa-rang. She also happens to be a Facebook “friend” of the fake "Mutya Bautista."

A fourth Facebook account, that of a "Jasmin De La Torre"(below)  shows the exact same cover photo as Lily Lopez. She only has 14 friends as of October 7 but is a member of various groups whose members total almost a million. 

The messages shared by these accounts penetrated a large segment of the population in the Philippines and friends and relatives spread across the globe in the Filipino diaspora.

In this environment, social media is a powerful tool. Tweets from one fake profile reached 43,337 different accounts. It had 1.9 million impressions.

Many times, American journalists who criticize the Duterte regime especially his extrajudicial war on drugs are often targeted  by Duterte's "keyboard army" along the lines of the tweets received by Sean Williams who wrote in The New Republic: “Maybe u are anti-Duterte TROLL,” tweeted a poster named Madelyn. “A foreigner who knows NOTHING bout my country.” She seemed to devote her waking hours to spreading her love of Duterte and assailing anyone who questioned him, posting dozens of times a day. “My President and I am proud of him,” one tweet read. “Get lost critics!”

The army of pro-Duterte trollers gives the false impression of the strongman's popularity that manifested itself into the movement that led to Duterte's 2016 election victory and continues to give him the power to wage his largely condemned war on drugs, threaten journalists (the Philippines is the most deadliest country for journalists) and insult President Barack Obama without suffering any political consequences.

RELATED: Filipino/Americans are not genuine Filipinos, says Duterte

In this busy online environment: enter Cambridge Analytica. The parent company website of Cambridge Analytica, Strategic Communication Laboratories (SCL), or SCL Group, shows it has 13 offices worldwide – including the Philippines.

About a year before the Philippine Presidential election, CA's CEO Nix, also director of SCL, was in Manila.

Former journalist and now Presidential Communications Undersecretary Joel Egco covered Nix’s visit for the Manila Times. The article said Nix was in the country “for a research.”

As they did in the U.S., Cambridge Analytica mined data from Facebook to target sets of voters by their personalities and behavior. The information was then used to target Facebook users on content specifically tailored for them.

“If you know the personality of the people you’re targeting, you can nuance your messaging to resonate more effectively with those key groups," said Nix said in a 2016 speech.

Nix told the Manila Times, “While TV continue to dominate the campaign landscape, the most powerful way to win elections is to have the people themselves campaign for you. Instead of relying heavily on political surveys, campaign strategists must use those data to influence the behavior of the person.”

A report by the South China Morning Post, said that an archived version of the SCL/Cambridge Analytica website boasts of its role in the rebranding of its client “as a strong, no-nonsense man of action, who would appeal to the true values of the voters,” which was the image adopted by Duterte for his campaign.

If Trump's campaign and Great Britain's Brexit vote were SCL/CA's biggest triumph, it honed its practices in the Philippines and other countries in Southeast Asia, including Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Thailand. In total, SCL/CA has been involved in 100 elections in 32 countries.

One of the first things a dictator does when he comes into power is to take control of the media. What Duterte is doing, instead of closing down traditional media -- TV stations or newspapers -- he simply drowns them out with social media as his megaphone.
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