Last month, she sent out an email to readers with characteristic idealism about the role of journalism in the world and her own:

I am not a criminal. I am a journalist.

Yet, this is what it takes to be a journalist in the Philippines today. Submit, accept a Damocles’ sword over your head, censor yourself, or be punished. Well, I never did like bullies, and I’ve learned that you define who you are when you’re tested. When we at Rappler look back a decade from now, we will know we did everything we could to protect our democracy.

So I touched my fear and learned to embrace it. Once you do that, you rob it of its power. We at Rappler imagined worst case scenarios, planned, and drilled for them.

Ressa and Santos will appeal their convictions. They face a sentence of up to six years if their appeals fail.

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