IT was jailed Sen.Leila de Lima's comment on the Nobel committee's grant of the Nobel Peace Prize to Maria Ressa that was most accurate, a part of it, that is. 'It is a big slap to the face of [President Duterte],' she said.

But not only to him: it is a huge insult to the Philippines itself and especially to all Filipino journalists. The award, in effect, portrayed the country as being in the league of countries like Haiti, Sudan or Uganda in the 1970s with a brutal dictator in power, a cowardly citizenry and a press doing nothing about it — except Ressa who is, therefore, being granted the Nobel peace award.