O FFICERS FROM the National Bureau of Investigation arrived late in the afternoon. They told journalists at Rappler, an online media outlet that has been scathing in its criticism of President Rodrigo Duterte, to stop filming as they arrested the organisation’s boss, Maria Ressa. A veteran journalist, Ms Ressa is accused of “cyber libel” in connection with a piece published almost seven years ago. It alleged that a businessman, Wilfredo Keng, whose car a former chief justice used for transport during an impeachment trial, had ties to human trafficking and drug rings.

Mr Keng, who denies the claims, fought back—eventually. A year ago he filed a complaint against the author of the piece, who no longer works at Rappler, as well as Ms Ressa and six more of the website’s employees under the Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012. The National Bureau of Investigation rebuffed him. The piece, after all, had appeared before the law’s enactment.

Last month, however, the Department of Justice mysteriously decided to revive the case on the grounds that the article had been updated in 2014. The National Union of Journalists denounced the “shamelessly manipulated charge” as an “act of persecution by a bully government”.

Mr Duterte has declared journalists “spies” and “sons of bitches” and once implied that most of the 185 journalists killed in the Philippines over the past 30 years deserved to die. “You won’t be killed if you don’t do anything wrong,” he says. He has been especially critical of Rappler’s coverage of his war on drugs, in which more than 20,000 people have died in extra-judicial killings, according to opposition politicians. He derides the website as a source of “fake news” and has banned its reporters from presidential events. This is not Rappler’s first brush with the law. It and Ms Ressa have also been charged with tax fraud. If convicted she could end up behind bars for a decade and Rappler could be forced to close.

Mr Duterte’s detractors often find themselves in trouble. Leila de Lima, a senator who was one of the loudest critics of the war on drugs, was arrested two years ago. She still languishes behind bars after prosecutors charged her with extorting money from drug dealers when she was justice minister—a claim she denies. Maria Lourdes Sereno, a former chief justice who frequently rebuked the president, was voted out of her job by her colleagues in May over a legal technicality. A third critic, Senator Antonio Trillanes, hid in his office for days in September after Mr Duterte revoked an amnesty he had received for his part in two past military rebellions. Eventually he was arrested and now faces trial.

Mr Duterte’s tough talk and strongman tactics have not dented his popularity at all—in fact, they seem to have boosted it. A recent poll puts his approval rating above 80%. Of course, intimidating critics and cowing the press help with that, too.