4+ day, 16+ hour ago (405+ words) PROOF. President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. shows media receipts as proof that the government has fully paid for the non-existent reinforced concrete riverwall project in Baliuag, Bulacan, on August 20, 2025. MANILA, Philippines " President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. on Wednesday, November 26, claimed that a lawyer of his erstwhile ally, resigned Ako Bicol representative Zaldy Co, tried to "blackmail" him to prevent the cancellation of the embattled former lawmaker's passport." "Meron po akong ibabanggit sa inyo. Nilapitan po kami ng abogado ni Zaldy Co at nagtatangkang mag-blackmail na kung hindi po namin kakanselahin daw ang passport niya, hindi na raw siya maglalabas ng video. I do not negotiate with criminals " kahit maglabas ka na ng video ng lahat ng kasinungalingan mo na pag-destabilize sa gobyerno," said Marcos in a recorded video released to the public." (I have something to tell you. A lawyer of Zaldy…...

3+ week, 4+ day ago (409+ words) VICTORY. Democratic candidate for New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani speaks after winning the 2025 New York City Mayoral race, at an election night rally in the Brooklyn borough of New York City, New York, US, November 4, 2025. REUTERS/ New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani wasted no time calling out President Donald Trump, formally kicking off the battle that will likely define relations between the 34-year-old mayor and the president whose celebrity is tied to the city. "Donald Trump, since I know you're watching, I have four words for you: turn the volume up!" Mamdani, a Democrat, said during a Tuesday night speech to a raucous crowd of supporters shortly after being declared the victor. Democrats swept a trio of races on Tuesday, November 5, in the first major elections since Trump returned to power nine months ago, elevating a new generation of…...

1+ week, 3+ day ago (203+ words) Juno Reyes is a Life & Style and Entertainment multimedia reporter who covers local music and art for Rappler. She first served as a Rappler intern in 2022 under the same unit. In 2023, she graduated magna cum laude from the Ateneo de Manila University with a communication degree and a minor in English literature. Before venturing into chronicling the worlds of Filipino art and OPM, Juno was a sports writer for The GUIDON, her university's official student newspaper. In her free time, you'll most likely find her filling her entire room with art prints and decorating all her belongings with stickers. She also has a growing collection of Smiskis, Sonny Angels, and Pop Marts. MANILA, Philippines " James Reid is set to grace the Rappler HQ again with his latest hits on Thursday, November 20! James got his start in the entertainment industry as…...

3+ day, 23+ hour ago (328+ words) Rappler CEO Maria Ressa introduces Oleksandra Matviichuk, Founder, Centre for Civil Liberties, for the Closing Keynote Address at the Social Good Summit on November 16, 2025. All the inspiring moments, now yours." Relive the full breadth of this year's Social Good Summit 2025, headlined by Amal and George Clooney of the Clooney Foundation for Justice, now exclusively available to Rappler+ members. At a time when truth is under attack and democracy feels fragile, this summit became a gathering of courage. Held on November 16, 2025, at Lanson Place Mall of Asia, Manila, global advocates, frontline journalists, and young leaders came together to confront the defining challenges of our era in technology, community, justice, and human resilience. This was more than a conference. It was a moment where ideas met action and where a shared vision of social good took shape. Your Rappler+ membership, along with…...

3+ day, 13+ hour ago (236+ words) Juno Reyes is a Life & Style and Entertainment multimedia reporter who covers local music and art for Rappler. She first served as a Rappler intern in 2022 under the same unit. In 2023, she graduated magna cum laude from the Ateneo de Manila University with a communication degree and a minor in English literature. Before venturing into chronicling the worlds of Filipino art and OPM, Juno was a sports writer for The GUIDON, her university's official student newspaper. In her free time, you'll most likely find her filling her entire room with art prints and decorating all her belongings with stickers. She also has a growing collection of Smiskis, Sonny Angels, and Pop Marts. MANILA, Philippines " It's going to be double the fun at the Rappler HQ as bands Jaggadah and Quaderna share the Live Jam stage on Thursday, November 27! Jagaddah is…...

5+ day, 22+ hour ago (485+ words) MANILA, Philippines " Rappler senior reporters Lian Buan and Dwight de Leon have been chosen as panelists in the Jaime V. Ongpin Journalism Seminar (JVOJS), an annual prestigious event organized by media watchdog Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility (CMFR). The seminar is slated to take place at the University of the Philippines College of Media and Communication TV Studio on Thursday, November 27. "CMFR established the JVOJS to recognize journalists who have distinguished themselves for the quality of their work in the context of best practice, press freedom protection, and the promotion of media ethics," a press release from the media watchdog read. Buan and De Leon join four other panelists from other media organizations, namely Cristina Chi of online news outlet Philstar.com, former Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism executive director and ex-Rappler reporter Carmela Fonbuena, TV5 chief data and elections head…...

1+ week, 5+ day ago (564+ words) Rappler's Social Good Summit 2025 features a conversation on AI safety, moderated by Rappler CEO Maria Ressa. The panel includes Taiwan's first digital minister Audrey Tang, British journalist Carole Cadwalladr, and Microsoft Philippines CEO Peter Maquera. MANILA, Philippines " Esteemed panelists of Rappler's Social Good Summit put front and center the dangers of artificial intelligence, and the need for government intervention. Carole Cadwalladr, the British journalist who exposed the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica data scandal in 2018, said the world has "done nothing" to hold to account the technology that can be weaponized and abused, since the consulting firm used data of millions of Facebook users to assist the 2016 presidential bid of Donald Trump. Today, she raised concerns about OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, for its supposed unethical practices. "I find OpenAI very, very troubling," Carole Cadwalladr said. "This is an abusive business model." "As…...

1+ week, 21+ hour ago (630+ words) Your boss got paid off. You stopped airing stories on him. Fuck you." This was the email sent by a burner account last October, accusing us of accepting hush money. That was months following our first investigative story on Congressman Edwin Gardiola." Hi, I'm Dwight de Leon, Rappler's senior reporter obsessing about this legislator, and let me tell you " I understand his frustration. I won't tolerate it, but I get where this person is coming from. Our first investigative piece on the party-list lawmaker in August detailed the windfall that his family's construction companies had secured after becoming congressman in 2022. Right after that, the anonymous source sent us a list of information about Gardiola. He probably thought a follow-up piece would have come sooner than later. It took me three months, not a few days." The congressional source was willing…...

2+ week, 4+ day ago (450+ words) MANILA, Philippines " For Filipinos, the meaning of resilience is always in flux. For some, it's a badge of honor worn for surviving countless calamities. For others, it's a wall that separates people from improvements and real change. But for most individuals, it's strength built by perseverance, and fighting the systemic challenges of the world. On Sunday, November 16, Rappler's Social Good Summit (SGS) 2025 gathers experts across diverse industries and crafts to explore how they build resilience, and how it anchors their work's longevity and overarching purpose. The "Art in Nation-Building" panel will see three needle-moving filmmakers in discussion about how to harness stories into impactful calls for action. The panelists are: On the other side of the coin, the "Resilience, Well-being, and Purpose" panel gives the floor to exceptional advocates. The panel is composed of: These speakers are no strangers to…...

3+ week, 3+ day ago (596+ words) MANILA, Philippines " The earnings of the Philippines" leading online gaming provider DigiPlus Interactive Corporation (DigiPlus) took a hit in the third quarter of 2025 due to tighter regulations imposed by the government on the digital gaming sector." Tycoon Eusebio Tanco"s DigiPlus" net income fell 59%, from P3.5 billion in the third quarter of 2024 to P1.7 billion for the same period this year, and EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization) declined by 47%, from P3.8 billion to P2 billion." "Revenues, meanwhile, contracted 23 percent to P10.05 billion on impact of tighter regulation, which required e-wallet providers to delink in-app access to licensed online gaming platforms," DigiPlus said in a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange on Thursday, November 6."These e-wallet providers were mainly GCash and Maya. "This temporarily disrupted player actvity and transaction volumes across the industry during the period," it said. DigiPlus currently dominates the Philippine…...