Legislative attempts to curtail free expressionTRO stops RA 10175 implementation
Fighting cybercriminals and restricting free expression
The Cybercrime Law, like the Data Privacy Act of 2012 (RA 10173), supposedly aims to make the Philippines “more investor-friendly,” especially for business process outsourcing (BPO) companies.
Rep. Roman Romulo, author of the Data Privacy Act in the House of Representatives, told journalists, editors and media groups that possible investors from the BPO sectors have raised concerns about the lack of data communication-digital security infrastructure and regulations in the Philippines.
GMA News Online report quoted the president of the Business Processing Association of the Philippines as saying that “The Cybercrime Prevention Act will help sustain and enhance investor confidence and strengthen our position as one of the world’s top locations for high-value IT-BPO services.”
Law enforcement agencies said the law would help speed up prosecution of cybercriminals. In a forum last September, the National Bureau of Investigation’s lawyer Palmer Mallari said the cybercrime law solves the limitations of the E-commerce law of 2000.
The government had been working on a draft law to strengthen cybercrime prevention in the country for eleven years. According to Mallari, the cybercrime bill had been with Congress for eleven years.
Based on a timeline posted by blogger and Digital marketing expert Janette Toral, the first bill on cybercrime was filed in 2001 by former Rep. Eric Singson. Its counterpart bill was filed by former Sen. Ramon Magsaysay.
For the 15th Congress, it was Assistant Secretary Geronimo Sy of the Justice department who lobbied for the filing of the cybercrime law. He also dismissed fears that the law will be used for critics online. In an October 10 interview with Solar News, Sy said the law was about hardcore, nationally-orchestrated cybercrime offenses. He even said that: “In fact, if they (Congress) had passed the bill that Cong. (Fred) Tinga and the Technical Working Group of the DOJ had worked together, they could have saved us a lot of aggravation and move forward…. Because the bill that we had was simplified and very clear, we just used laws on international convention on cybercrime….. Focus on hardcore cybercrime offenses…. That was the template we provided all these years.”
In 2001, however, online social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter did not yet exist. Blogging was not as widespread as it is now. Fewer Filipinos were also online. Strictly speaking, therefore, the Cybercrime Prevention Act in its present form and application took only over a year to pass Congress and to be signed into law.
A better option
Many—including those who have questioned the law in Court—believe that the government should strengthen its policies in preventing criminals from using the Internet to harm children and women, steal identities and data and other illegal online activities.
However, the ambiguity of the provisions in the law threatens free expression and the free flow of information online.
Other critics also said it would have been a better option to just amend existing laws—e.g., the Revised Penal Code, the E-Commerce Law, the Anti-voyeurism law, etc.—to include crimes committed through computer systems instead of creating a vague, badly written and all-encompassing cybercrime law that could be subject to abuse.
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