Arts & Lectures Hosts Reception with Maria Ressa

On May 18, UCSB Arts & Lectures (A&L) hosted a reception with Nobel Peace Prize laureate Maria Ressa at the UCSB Mosher Alumni House. Ressa has been a journalist in Asia for more than 35 years and is a cofounder of Rappler, a digital news site in the Philippines leading the fight for press freedom there.

Guests included Chancellor Henry Yang and Dilling Yang, UCSB trustees, donors, and media professionals. Guests enjoyed a talk and Q&A session with Ressa, followed by a book-signing. Then guests adjourned to Campbell Hall for Ressa’s public lecture on her latest book, How to Stand Up to a Dictator.

For her reporting on the authoritarian administration of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, Ressa has endured many arrest warrants, including one that led to the rescheduling of her A&L talk from January to May. She was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2021 and has been celebrated worldwide for fighting disinformation and attempts to silence the press.

In giving her remarks, Ressa was engaging, cheerful despite the subject matter, and fascinating. She began by sharing how she had to get approval from the Supreme Court in the Philippines to travel to Santa Barbara, and while the Court approved this trip, it nixed her proposed travel to New York. “That is the weirdness and fluctuation that happens when your justice system teeters.”

She noted how in the lead up to the 2017 elections in France, Facebook took down up to 50,000 accounts. She asked guests to consider what would have happened if they similarly had taken down accounts in the Philippines or in the United States prior to elections in those countries.

She related how in 2019, she had 10 arrest warrants, but she kept posting bail and now only three cases remain. With a smile, she declared that things are better. She cautioned that while U.S. institutions are stronger than in the global South, we have seen how easily institutions are undermined and Americans must do better than those in the global South have done.

In response to a question about the difference between the Duterte and the Marcos governments, Ressa pointed to fear having been lifted. Fear, she maintained, is a powerful force, which was Duterte’s weapon and can cripple democracy.

Even though people power ousted the father 37 years ago, Ressa related, the son won overwhelmingly because of information operations that changed Marcos’s name from a kleptocrat to the country’s best leader ever. “This powerful technology changed history in front of our eyes in the Philippines.” Another factor, Ressa noted, was that feudal dynasties still supported Marcos. 

Ressa shared insights on the strength of women in a male-dominated world, relating how vulnerability is key because it creates real trust. As a reporter, she learned that by lowering one’s shields, one creates better connections. She confided that she cannot bluster her way through things, as that does not work for her, and that “real strength is about being okay even if you get hit.” She credits her vulnerability for enabling her to build community in the Philippines, where people were afraid and the costs of standing up were so high.

As is typical with Arts & Lectures, there was more to the Ressa visit than the lecture and reception. Earlier in the day, Ressa participated in a discussion at a UCSB political science class. A month earlier, Arts & Lectures hosted a free screening of a documentary about Ressa, A Thousand Cuts, along with a conversation with filmmaker Ramona Diaz. Free copies of Ressa’s book were distributed in the community.

Arts & Lectures relies heavily on community support to sustain its lectures, performances, and community outreach and education.