The Palace said Friday the inclusion of Rappler CEO Maria Ressa among Time magazine’s list of “most influential women of the century” was a mistake.
“You can’t be correct all the time. Mistakes happen. Maybe this is one of them,” Presidential Spokesman Salvador Panelo told reporters.
He described Ressa as “a good journalist” who nevertheless “cannot go over beyond her biases.”
Ressa founded the news organization Rappler, which has been critical in reporting about President Rodrigo Duterte.
She was named Time’s Woman of the Year in 2018, and since then she has continued to “navigate the murk between social media and despotism, calling out her findings to the rest of us at the risk of her life,” according to the magazine.
Time’s “100 Women of the Year,” a list of the most influential women of the past century, puts the spotlight on “influential women who were often overshadowed.”
Ressa joined the ranks of women around the world who were recognized as Time magazine’s Woman of the Year, such as former Philippine President Corazon Aquino, Myanmar’s civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, Princess Diana of Wales, athlete Serena Williams and entertainment personalities Madonna and Oprah Winfrey.
The other “influential women” honored by the magazine in its latest issue included former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir, former Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, former United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Sadako Ogata, and Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg.
