MANILA-Philippine Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Ressa will appeal a conviction for cyberlibel in the country’s highest court, her lawyer said on Tuesday, as the veteran journalist battles to stay out of prison. The Court of Appeals had rejected a motion to reconsider its upholding of her 2020 conviction, a move her lawyer Ted Te said was “disappointing”.
 Ressa, 59, and her former colleague Rey Santos Jr face lengthy jail sentences for the conviction, which her news website Rappler has vowed to fight. The latest appeal rejection, handed down on Monday, “ignored basic principles of constitutional and criminal law as well as the evidence presented,” Te said in a statement.  “Maria and Rey will elevate these issues to the SC (Supreme Court) and we will ask the SC to review the decision and to reverse the decision.”
Ressa has long been a vocal critic of former president Rodrigo Duterte and the deadly drug war he launched in 2016, triggering what media advocates say is a grinding series of criminal charges, probes and online attacks against her and Rappler. She and Russian journalist Dmitry Muratov were awarded the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts to “safeguard freedom of expression”.