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The Nobel laureate needs special permission to travel abroad due to pending lawsuits against the Duterte administration.
A court of appeals in the Philippines has allowed journalist Maria Ressa to travel to Oslo to personally accept the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize in person next week.
Ressa was the CEO of the Manila News website, Rappler awarded prestigious award along with Russian journalist Dmitry Muratov for his work in combating misinformation and spreading fake news on social media.
Due to several pending lawsuits filed against him and his news organization under the administration of President Rodrigo Duterte, including a cyber libel conviction, Ressa must apply to the court for special permission each time she goes abroad.
In a ruling on Friday evening, the Court of Appeal upheld the request to leave the country on December 8 to attend the awards ceremony to be held in the Norwegian capital on December 10 in Ressa.
Earlier on Friday, Ressa told Al Jazeera that she had just arrived in the Philippine capital after a trip to the United States to attend a series of one-month talks at Harvard University in Boston.
During that time, he informed the court that he intended to visit a 76-year-old mother who is ill in Florida on holiday.
The appellate court granted him permission to travel to the United States, saying that he was required to be physically present at Harvard to give lectures. This authorization was announced a few days after the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded.
The Court of Appeal had previously denied Ressa’s trip to the United States to accept the 2020 International Press Freedom Award by the National Press Club.
In December 2020, the same court also denied a request to visit her mother, saying it was not considered a necessary and urgent trip.
In the final order, the court ruled that the previous P500,000 ($ 10,000) bail he had set aside to travel to Harvard University would be used as a bond to travel to Norway.
Duterte’s lawyer, Attorney General Jose Calida, spoke out against Ressa’s trip to Norway, saying it was in danger of escaping.
Ressa, who also holds U.S. citizenship, has repeatedly said that for her, “exile is not an option” and that she has chosen to live in the Philippines.
On dozens of previous trips abroad, Ressa also returned to the Philippines, despite several charges and threats against Duterte.
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