Rappler admits USAID funding but still neither confirms nor denies receiving grants from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED)

Yellowtard “social news network” Rappler continues to flail over the gutting of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) by US President Donald Trump. Gaby Baizas, a “digital forensics researcher” there insists in her piece “The lies, attacks on USAID spreading in the Philippines” that “USAID has been providing humanitarian aid to several countries, including the Philippines” and that “[its] programs aim to address a variety of key issues, such as access to public health, ending conflict in poor regions, promoting democracy and human rights, among others”.

Baizas also defends the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) which, she also insists, “was created in 1983 to support programs that promote good governance, human rights, and democratic values in nearly 100 countries around the world.” Note that Baizas categorically stated in her “report” that “Rappler, Vera Files, and PCIJ were partners of the USAID-funded Initiative for Media Freedom (IMF) project by Internews” as part of funding extended to “select Philippine news outlets for certain periods during the previous Duterte administration”. However, it is also interesting to note that Baizas made no similar categorical disclosure or denial of Rappler’s relationship with NED opting, instead, to use these nebulous words…

Before the current hate campaign against USAID and NED, Duterte’s disinformation networks had already blasted independent Philippine newsrooms that have received funding from NED for their fact-checking initiatives. Yet, this has always been publicly disclosed; Rappler and Vera Files stated they receive grants for their fact-checking, research, and media and information literacy efforts, while PCIJ said they receive funds for its training seminar-workshops.

Note the text in italics (formatted as such by this author). Baizas “reports” that Rappler and Vera Files “receive grants” but was not entirely explicit in stating categorically who disbursed these grants. Was the NED, aside from USAID, one such grantor?

Whatever, right? Either way, Rappler CEO (and Nobel “Peace Prize” laureate) Maria Ressa should issue stronger instructions to her “reporters” to check their “facts”. It is worth considering that Ressa and her stakeholders see this is a fact checking issue or an issue to do with being consistent with the overarching agenda of their fellows in the Yellowtard-Communist Axis that, for so long, have been battling the forces of “fascism”. Fascism, from their perspective, apparently is anything and everything to do with whatever is associated with their two favourite bogeymen — former president Rodrigo Duterte and current President Bongbong Marcos (i.e., for that matter, anyone in power who is not a part of their Axis).

Ressa may find it interesting that her pals in the Philippines’ left-leaning “activist” communities are, ironically, not very big fans of Uncle Sam’s “foreign aid” — whether coursed via USAID or the NED. Indeed, they even express skepticism around whether these are all in aid of democracy (as Rappler’s “researchers” assert) to begin with. Sonny Africa, director of IBON Foundation, a leftist “non-profit research, education and information-development institution with programs in research, education and advocacy based in the Philippines”, wrote in a paper back in 2013 of how the United States “used this [aid] as leverage for an increased US military presence in the Philippines as part of its global ‘war on terror’.” Africa further writes of this focus on military aid; how it continues “even as the Philippine military and its paramilitary forces have been found to be complicit in mounting human rights violations and a wave of political killings, forced disappearances and abductions.”

Of the component of “aid” channelled to the Philippines via USAID, Africa notes that these had “become concentrated in local community projects in the Mindanao region”. He then suggests that these were mostly covertly in support of the US military agenda citing how “[these] southern provinces were the re-entry point for US military forces in the country in 2002. Since 2002, there has been in the Philippines a continuous presence of US troops – from a few hundred to over 6,000 (especially in Mindanao) – pre-positioning of war materiel and the transit of US forces heading for Afghanistan and Iraq.”

Hardly surprising then that the Axis routinely fails in its efforts to get messaging out that resonates over a broad swathe of the Filipino public. It cannot win a PR war if its messaging is full of holes or, as in this case, conflicts with that of one or the other sects in their camp. What is the true nature of USAID’s role in the Philippines? Is it, along with the NED’s presumed goals, really all about upholding the democratic ideals of the “free world”?