MikeLigalig.com

The cybercrime law

By Jenny Ortuoste
September 20, 2012
Manila Standard Today

Is the new cybercrime law oppressive?

Republic Act 10175, signed by the President into law a week ago, lists “punishable acts” related to hacking, “misuse of devices”, frauds and cons, spam, and pornography (specifically child porn and “cybersex”).

But what alarms bloggers and Internet-based news outlets most is a section that includes libel as one of the punishable “content-related” offenses:

“Section 4 (4) Libel â€" The unlawful or prohibited acts of libel as defined in Article 355 of the Revised Penal Code, as amended committed through a computer system or any other similar means which may be devised in the future.”

Libel is defined in Art. 353 as the “public and malicious imputation of a crime, or of a vice or defect, real or imaginary, or any act, omission, condition, status or circumstance tending to cause the dishonor, discredit, or contempt of a natural or juridical person, or to blacken the memory of one who is dead.”

This definition of libel is rather vague and subjective to begin with; and as usual with lawmakers, as a former congressman explained to me, they add all sorts of catch-all phrases to cover the possible situations that might arise in relation to that law. So libel and defamation cases hinge on either side’s claim of what is “malicious”, “vice”, “defect”, “dishonor”, the definition of keywords such as “privacy,” and so on.

(There is also the matter of the libel provision being inserted after the bill passed the Senate, when this is not allowed after the second reading. That was illegal to begin with.)

more at http://manilastandardtoday.com/2012/09/20/the-cybercrime-law/

Editorial

A blow against free speech

Philippine Daily Inquirer
Thursday, September 20th, 2012

The new Cybercrime Prevention Act, signed into law by President Aquino on Sept. 12, takes the dangerously outmoded provisions on libel in the Revised Penal Codeâ€"and dumps them online. Without any legislative debate, without any public hearing, indeed with hardly anyone looking, these libel provisions have been unthinkingly extended to all online content. While the extension itself is only a small part of the new law, it now threatens every citizen who has access to a computer device with unconscionable restrictions on our hard-earned right to free speech.

We believe the new provision is deeply, radically, unconstitutional.

Coupled with the continuing inaction of the Aquino administration and its coalition allies in Congress on the long-sought, much-promised Freedom of Information Act, the new law makes us question the depth of the administration’s commitment to free speech, a free press and the free exchange of information.

It is possible that the Aquino administration and its partners in Congress were merely asleep at the switch, and did not realize the true implications of the extension. The sequence of events, as first pieced together by blogger and South China Morning Post correspondent Raissa Robles, certainly suggests that the introduction of the inserted passage, by Senate Majority Leader Vicente Sotto III, was hurried and did not benefit from in-depth discussion. The law’s major sponsor, Sen. Edgardo Angara, merely acquiesced to Sotto’s proposal to extend the reach of the existing libel provisions to cyberspace.

Whatever the case, the burden of responsibilityâ€"and it is a heavy one, with historical consequencesâ€"remains with the legislators who voted for the new law, and with the President who enacted it.

more at http://opinion.inquirer.net/37106/a-blow-against-free-speech

at the end part of this editorial...

We note that, in the penalties section, no sanctions are imposed on cyber-libel. Did our legislators think that was enough of a safeguard? But the journalism profession’s sorry experience with libel law in the Philippines has never been about conviction; it has always been about prosecution.

In other words, and even though libel suits are difficult to win because the presence of malice, a requirement of the law, is hard to prove, libel cases are filed against journalists anywayâ€"because these cases are a form of harassment. They tie up a reporter’s time, they run up an editor’s legal fees, they discombobulate a newsroom.

And now, courtesy of our legislators, the same form of harassment is available to torment those who produce online content. That means, literally, tens of millions of Filipinos, made vulnerable in one fell swoop.

Last year, the United Nations Human Rights Committee found that the Philippine libel law, which penalizes those convicted with imprisonment, violates human rights protocols. All of a sudden, it now runs afoul of Internet protocols, too.

http://opinion.inquirer.net/

I heard nga ang DOST, DOJ maghimo kono ug IRR para ani pero I believe bisan na ug maghimo ug IRR dili naman matangtang nang vague provisions on libel sa online. Dapat tangtangon sa na.