Cybercrime Law in the Philippines

Danie Bhe Jaco

The Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012, signed by President Benigno

Aquino III on Sep. 12, aims to fight online pornography, hacking, identity
theft and spamming following local law enforcement agencies' complaints
over the lack of legal tools to combat cybercrime. However, the law came
with tougher legal penalties for Internet defamation, compared to traditional
media. It also allows authorities to collect data from personal user accounts
on social media and listen in on voice and video applications such as Skype,
without a warrant. Users who post defamatory comments on Facebook or
Twitter, for example, could be sentenced to up 12 years in jail.
The Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012, also known as Republic Act
10175, may aim to bring crime-fighting into the 21st century by addressing
harmful acts committed with the use of the worldwide web but it raises the
risk of rights violations and curtailment of freedom of expression and of the
press by expanding the concept of the criminalized act of libel. The law also
raises the penal sentence for libel committed in cyberspace one year longer
than that imposed in the Revise Penal Code for libel in general.

The salient features of the Act include internationally consistent

definitions for certain cybercrimes, nuanced liability for perpetrators of
cybercrimes, increased penalties, greater authority granted to law
enforcement authorities, expansive jurisdictional authority to prosecute
cybercrimes, provisions for international cybercrime coordination efforts
and greater ability to combat cybercrimes. It is highly advisable that the
imperfections in the law, the provisions that conflict with other aspects of
good governance and national and international obligations, be corrected
soon through amendments. Strong leadership does not shirk from
acknowledging the need to revise and strengthen policy and law.

Issues about a certain bill, which was passed by our President

Aquino, have grown even before its implementation. This became a
mainstream issue on the cyberworld and other media. Some were happy
about the laws provisions, but others, mostly, disagreed with its rules. The
laws called the Cybercrime Prevention Law which was proposed by Senator
Tito Sotto, who was accused of plagiarism in two of his recent speeches.
This law has a bright side, but its not enough to cover its ugly side.

We have a right to freely say what we want, but with limitations.

Freedom is not absolute. We must still be conscious on what were saying,
or even posting on our Facebook walls. In the cyber-world, freedom is
welcomed playing, watching, reading, commenting, liking, sharing and
even buying what we want. Internet has been a jar of our hidden
personalities. An individuals attitude is changing when entering the cyberworld. And because of that, many became abusive of that freedom and use it
to harm other people. This led the government to pass a law concerning the
said emerging cyber problem.
The cybercrime law has many obvious disadvantages for
netizens almost all Filipinos are netizens. This law envisions a safe internet
world. In line with that, the law contains very heavy punishments for the
abusive netizens. The problem with that is the way the law considers an
internet action abusive. Even liking a libelous content is counted as an
abusive action? Thats ridiculous! Many would say that its for the safety of
the Filipino people, but didnt they think that its a way of depriving a
democratic country of its freedom to express thoughts. Thats totally ironic.
Im not saying that it deprives Filipinos of the freedom of speech totally, but
a big part of that right is diminished.

1. The law extends criminal libel to the web.

Historically, politicians and other powerful individuals in the
Philippines have abused the existing law on criminal libel to silence
criticism. The new law would change the current setup, extending
criminal libel to websites, blogs and social media platforms. Some
critics say the law would also cover information shared over texts or
instant messaging tools on mobile phones. This means that a person
who sends a text containing "malicious" comments could be charged
with criminal libel.
Even those who forward, retweet, "like" or share information could
face imprisonment for at least two years, or a fine of at least 100,000
pesos (US$2,400), or both. They call it "aiding and abetting" libel.

2. The law imposes higher penalties for libel committed online.

Under the new law, a person convicted of cyberlibel could spend a
maximum of 12 years in prison. This is six years longer than the
maximum year of imprisonment for libel committed in traditional
media platforms. Plus, a person already facing libel charges for a story
printed in a newspaper could be charged again under the new law if
the same libellous article appears online. Most local news

organisations repost what had been printed in the papers on their

websites

or

blog,

so

they

would

all

be

susceptible.

3. The law gives government agencies the power to restrict and

monitor Internet use.
The cybercrime law empowers the government particularly the
Department of Justice to block access to any computer data which
may contain information that violates the law. It can arbitrarily
shutdown a website at first glance without due process.

The law also allows traffic data including the "communication's

origin, destination, route, time, date, size, duration, or type of
underlying service" to be collected and monitored in real time, and
without a warrant. While authorities are prohibited from collecting
data on content and user identities, this kind of traffic data can still
be used to identify a person and access content on their computers.
4. The law brazenly disregards national and international
protections of free expression.
The Philippine Constitution explicitly protects the right to freedom of
expression. It declares that "no law shall be passed abridging the

freedom of speech, of expression, or of the press, or the right of the

people peaceably to assemble and petition the government for redress
of grievances." A few days before the cybercrime act came into effect,
the Washington-based non-governmental organization Freedom
House ranked the Philippines as one of the countries with the freest
Internet

environment,

citing

the

Constitution

and

Filipinos'

unrestricted access to the Net. The only criminal restriction on free

expression before the cybercrime law was libel as defined in the
penal code. But in October 2011, the United Nations Human Rights
Committee declared the libel provisions as "excessive" and
"incompatible" with the International Covenant on Civil and Political
Rights.

The law is a threat to an ideal justice. The law says that you can be
imprisoned for almost 12 years if you are caught red handed on doing
something in the internet that is abusive, on the other side, our law about anti
women abuse says that if you raped an innocent person, youll just be jailed
for 3 years! Thats not right. Another thing , the law will be using 50 million
pesos a year to successfully implement it, but dont they know that more

hungry stomachs need that amount? Surely, this will be an issue on the
proper allocation of our national budget. Lastly, the Philippines has more
alarming problems that should be thought first than the cybercrime. Shortage
of food and water, poor shelter programs, overpopulation, growing
unemployment and underemployment rate, and global warming are just
some them. Why dont they focus on those things?
Cybercrime is very controversial issue on the government this
time, but they havent solved yet non-cyber crimes in the Philippines which
are more life damaging. Its funny that the government is keeping on acting
that they can handle complex and new issues, even though they cant
manage to solve the common ones. The government and our country need to
grow more before we go to that cyber matter.