I was with Rappler, the independent Philippine news site that is now threatened with closure, from the beginning, and consider it my home.
From its launch in 2012, reporting for Rappler meant not looking over your shoulder to check if an investor or an advertiser was going to be displeased. We did not tell ourselves we were going to be brave. We just simply did our job with public interest as our mantra and, in the process, we found the courage to speak truth to power. It worked: Rappler today has 100 staff and attracts 40 million page views a month making it the top online-only news site in the Philippines.
