If I were a shareholder of “social news network” Rappler, I’d be really pissed. You hire and pay a CEO big bucks and what does she do? She gets my company into a heap of tax trouble and exposes it to a big libel case. Worst of all, she gets arrested and spends most of her time in rallies and schmoozing with “activists” who espouse nebulous causes.
Most CEOs worth their salt are measured on the basis of shareholder added value. It seems Ressa has not only exempted herself from compliance to Philippine law, she’s also unilaterally exempted herself from measures that make most CEOs tremble on their leather seats.
If there is anything that exhibits just what an awful business executive Maria Ressa is, look no further than the business she was supposed to be leading. Rappler was once a star “new media” entity. Now it is so short of cash that it resorts to soliciting donations to fund its quaint legal battles.
Ressa is covering up her failure as a CEO with the dishonest “activism” around “press freedom” we are subject to today. That’s a really dishonest initiative that is sucking precious attention span away from more important national issues that truly matter to ordinary Filipinos. It’s time to put a stop to this nonsense and call out the failed CEO that Maria Ressa really is.