I finally had a chance to listen to the whole podcast of BBC journalist Stephen Sackur’s interview with Maria Ressa in his program HardTalk. Sackur did manage to ask some hard questions, which Ressa simply tried to dodge. She did not answer the questions directly. She kept insisting President Rodrigo Duterte’s popularity is a product of propaganda.
During the interview, Sackur hardly had a chance to talk. He had difficulty getting a word in because Ressa hogged the microphone and kept talking and insisted that “democracy is dead”.
Even when Sackur pointed out that it doesn’t look like freedom of speech is suffering because there is proof of a healthy debate in the Philippines, Ressa refused to concede. Ressa’s response to that was way off the point. She simply exaggerated the threats she receives. She sounded like a sociopath with her lying.
In Maria Ressa’s mind, Duterte’s popularity is not real. She believes it is based on fear and intimidation. She thinks Facebook killed democracy and has become a “behaviour modification system”. Ressa has become a conspiracy theorist. She can’t deal with reality. What a nutjob!
There is enough evidence to say Ressa is full of herself and suffering from delusions of grandeur after listening to her talk during her interview with Sackur. In Tagalog, she is mayabang. The way she spoke reeks of arrogance and stubbornness. It’s no wonder she is losing her cases in court.
In life, things are not always what they seem.