The Court of Appeals has turned down Rappler CEO Maria Ressa’s appeal to allow her to go to the United States to visit her ailing mother.
In a Dec. 18 resolution, the court’s Special 12th Division said Ressa failed to prove the trip was necessary and urgent, and that there were “exceptional circumstances” to justify the restriction on her right to travel.
Ressa had asked the appellate court to allow her to visit her 76-year-old mother who was diagnosed with breast cancer in October.
In ruling against Ressa’s appeal, the court cited a Supreme Court ruling that a conviction “warrants the exercise of greater caution in allowing a person admitted to bail from leaving the Philippines.”
The court said it considered Ressa’s latest motion to travel as a “continuation” of her second motion, which the court had already dismissed with finality.
The court also ruled that the latest motion amounted to a prohibited second motion for reconsideration.
Besides, the court said, the medical abstract did not have any indication that Ressa was “urgently needed” in the US.
“Foremost, the document shows that her mother was seen on telemedicine, which literally means healing at a distance. Also, the attending physician attested that her mother tolerated well the procedure performed on her,” said the resolution written by Associate Justice Geraldine Fiel-Macaraig. Associate Justices Danton Bueser and Carlito Calpatura concurred with the ruling.
The court also said Ressa’s motion included an undisclosed itinerary.
This would be the third time the court, which is handling Ressa’s appeal of her cyber libel conviction in June, denied her plea to leave the country.