{
  "id": 601,
  "url": "https://cmfr-phil.org/inmediasres/luis-teodoro/a-relic-of-colonial-times-2/",
  "final_url": "https://cmfr-phil.org/inmediasres/luis-teodoro/a-relic-of-colonial-times-2/",
  "title": "A relic of colonial rule",
  "publisher": "Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility",
  "published_on": "2014-02-24",
  "link_state": "live",
  "link_state_since": "2026-09-26T18:11:00Z",
  "wayback_url": null,
  "wayback_saved_at": null,
  "source_kind": "reference",
  "last_checked": "2026-09-26T18:11:00Z",
  "archive_attempts": 0,
  "checks": [
    {
      "checked_at": "2026-09-26T18:11:00Z",
      "checker": "twon-linkcheck/1.0",
      "http_status": 200,
      "final_url": "https://cmfr-phil.org/inmediasres/luis-teodoro/a-relic-of-colonial-times-2/",
      "observed_state": "live",
      "detail": null
    }
  ],
  "claims": [
    {
      "id": 970,
      "statement": "The Philippine Commission enacted Act No. 277, a law criminalizing libel, which was later used against the nationalist press.",
      "status": "current"
    },
    {
      "id": 971,
      "statement": "Governor-General William Howard Taft justified the libel law's passage by saying Filipinos were a strange people unused to the freedom of the press.",
      "status": "current"
    },
    {
      "id": 972,
      "statement": "El Renacimiento's 1908 editorial described colonial officials as birds of prey, comparing them to eagles, vultures, owls and vampires.",
      "status": "current"
    },
    {
      "id": 973,
      "statement": "Secretary of the Interior Dean C. Worcester filed the libel suit that led to the conviction of El Renacimiento's editor Fidel Reyes, co-editor Teodoro M. Kalaw and publisher Martin Ocampo.",
      "status": "current"
    },
    {
      "id": 974,
      "statement": "Kalaw and Ocampo's appeals to the Philippine Supreme Court and the United States Supreme Court failed, and their conviction was affirmed in both courts.",
      "status": "current"
    },
    {
      "id": 975,
      "statement": "Ocampo's 100,000 peso fine crippled El Renacimiento and its sister paper Muling Pagsilang, and both stopped publishing.",
      "status": "current"
    },
    {
      "id": 976,
      "statement": "Governor-General Francis Burton Harrison pardoned Ocampo in 1914, after the fine had already closed the paper.",
      "status": "current"
    }
  ],
  "incidents": [
    {
      "slug": "1901-philippines-us-colonial-libel-act-el-renacimiento",
      "title": "Philippines: United States colonial government's libel law is used to close the newspaper El Renacimiento"
    }
  ]
}