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<img loading="lazy" src="https://cdn.kahimyang.com/resources-8/rappler-1-sm.webp" alt="Rappler Department of Tourism contract" />
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(Part of Rappler and Department of Tourism contract)
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No wonder it has been so much a tool of the past regime of Benigno Aquino III, that it was even at the head of the pack that lynched Chief Justice Renato Corona, and now so vociferously anti-Duterte that it has been grossly exaggerating the number of people killed in the wake of the President's anti-drug war.


According to documents and claims by very reliable sources, Rappler received as much as P40 million from 2014 to mid-2016 from government agencies in the form of dubious consultancies, "intelligence services," and advertising revenues.


Call a spade a spade: Rappler has been the Aquino regime's paid media.



Rappler allegedly badgered Aquino for the funding when its main stockholder Benjamin Bitanga started to distance himself from the outfit mid-2014, after putting about P50 million into the firm. Rappler, however, got about P100 million in funding in late 2015 from US outfits Omidyar and North Base Media. But that got it into serious legal trouble since foreigners are totally banned from media under our Constitution.

Documents made public recently showed that Aquino's tourism secretary Ramon Jimenez signed a contract with Rappler (represented by its sales manager Carla Yap Sy Su) on August 28, 2014 for the tourism department to pay the outfit P9.6 million for just three months of service.



Anyone familiar with internet consultancy-or any kind of consultancy services-would be shocked how generous Jimenez was and at how anomalous the contract was.


In just a month and a half after the contract was signed, on October 15, 2014, Rappler was paid P3.2 million. The output? A vague "tourism intelligence report" and "launch of microsite and crowdsource platform for 1st city."


After another month and a half, on November 31, 2014, Rappler was paid another P3.2 million for "2nd intelligence report" and "launch of microsite and crowdsource platform for 2nd city." And then on December 31, 2014, in time to celebrate the New Year- another P3.2 million for similar mysterious reports.


 C'mon, do you know of any outfit that works so feverishly as to complete a report through December? 

<div class="image-full-width">
<img loading="lazy" src="https://cdn.kahimyang.com/resources-8/rappler-2-sm.webp" alt="Rappler Department of Tourism contract" />
(Part of Rappler and Department of Tourism contract)
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Anybody who reads the contract would have absolutely no doubt how very questionable it is:


The Jimenez-Rappler contract was so brief-at just three pages-it was obviously done in haste and only to put something on paper.


In contrast to most consultancy contracts, there wasn't even a reference to any other document (usually called "terms of reference") that would detail exactly what the "intelligence reports," "microsite," "crowdsourcing platform" Rappler would produce that taxpayers would be paying P9.6 million for.


There is a reason why Jimenez and Rappler labeled the outfit's services as "intelligence reports." Jimenez could use the classification as an excuse to hide the contract from the Commission on Audit, claiming the confidential nature of "intelligence."





Rappler itself confirmed the P9.6 million contract in an article on its website on May 5, 2015. It was cowardly-or to evade legal issues-bylined though not by its editor Maria Ressa, but by "Rappler.com."



Its response was curt. After saying that the contract was a "valid and legal advertising contract with the DoT in 2015, it claimed: "Commercial transactions between government agencies and media companies are not unique. The current DoT secretary herself says her agency also spent tens of millions of pesos for ads with ABS-CBN, GMA, CNN Philippines, CNN International, Discovery Channel, and the BBC."


In just three sentences to answer the questions over its P9.6 million contract with government, its stupid writer admitted to Rappler's financing by Aquino's regime in different ways.


The P9.6 million questionable contracts were not for advertising, and not made in 2015. It was for Rappler to produce "tourism intelligence reports" and, obviously to confound the COA, "microsites" and "crowdsourcing platforms" in 2014.


Revealingly, Rappler's own claim though that it had a "valid and legal advertising contract with the DoT in 2015" bolsters allegations by insiders in the department that Aquino had ordered it to heavily support the financially struggling outfit with advertising, which wasn't justifed by its reach.


The sources claimed that from 2014 to the time Aquino stepped down in mid-2016, the tourism department and other government agencies-Pagcor and PCSO were mentioned as the main "suspects"-paid P20 million for their advertisements in Rappler. I myself at that time was suspicious at the many advertisements in the website on Philippine tourism sites.





Rappler's P9.6-million revenues from Aquino's tourism department was unearthed by broadcast journalist Erwin Tulfo, obviously given to him by insiders in the agency. When it was disclosed in May, Rappler managed to skirt the issue by claiming that it was simply Tulfo's way of evading the controversy of his and his siblings' P60 million advertising contract with the department when it was headed by their sister Wanda Tulfo Teo.


Whether or not it is accurate, that has become irrelevant. The Tulfos have been put under extreme scrutiny not just by the public or even by the courts, if Senator Antonio Trillanes IV would have his way.


The disclosure of the Jimenez-Rappler contract though would bolster claims by insiders that there wasn't just one P9.6 million but at least two more three-month contracts, that the Commission on Audit didn't pay notice to. The first contract was contrived as a three-month period, in order to put it below the radar of the COA, which would have questioned not just its sloppiness and vagueness, but why it wasn't bid out.

Rappler got at least P40M from 2014-2016 from Aquino government for dubious consultancies