Legislative attempts to curtail free expressionTRO stops RA 10175 implementation

C) The law imposes higher penalties for crimes committed online.

The penalty for cybercrime offenses—except those which are enumerated in Section 8—is raised one degree higher than what the Revised Penal Code and other special laws demand. Applying this principle to the the libel provision, a person convicted of cyber libel can be jailed for at least six years and one day instead of the minimum terms of six months and one day. This will instill the fear among journalists, netizens, and social media users, and discourage criticism online.

The petitioners also said the law violates a person’s right against double jeopardy. A person already facing libel charges for a story printed in a newspaper could also be charged under the new law if the same libelous article appears online. Most local news organizations re-post what had been printed in the papers on their websites or blog, so they would all be susceptible.

This is in addition to the possibility of facing civil defamation charges. In the Philippines, a person can be sued for libel separately and independently under both its penal and civil codes.

D) The law disregards national and international protection of free expression.

The drafters of the 1987 Philippine Constitution had ensured that protection of rights including freedom of expression are included in the Constitution. It declares unequivocally 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 Act came into effect, the Washington-based non-governmental organization Freedom House had ranked the Philippines as one of the countries with a free Internet environment. One reason cited by Freedom House was the Constitutional protection for privacy of communication and free expression.

The only criminal restriction on free expression—before the cybercrime law—was libel (as defined in its penal code). But the United Nations Human Rights Committee (UNHRC) had already declared this as “excessive” and “incompatible” with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights in an October 2011 communication. (See related story “Harassments and killings continued in 2012”)

“Surprise”

As protests against the cybercrime law intensified, some lawmakers said that the inclusion of criminal libel came as a surprise even to them. In a Sept. 24 roundtable discussion, Rep. Raymond Palatino of the Kabataan (Youth) Partylist said that the provisions on criminal libel and the Justice department’s arbitrary power to restrict or block data access were not mentioned in the approved version of House Bill no. 5808. Palatino and Rep. Antonio Tinio had managed to have libel removed as one of the cybercrime offenses in HB no. 5808 before it was approved on Third and Final Reading.

Palatino said these provisions were added to the draft law during the Bicameral Committee Conference.

Reviewing Journal no. 50 of the Senate, it appeared that the Bicameral Committee adopted Senate bill (SB) 2796 as its working template. It was in SB 2796 that libel was named as one of the cybercrime content-related offenses.

Based on the legislative information systems of both Houses, there were 13 Senators (January 2012) and 211 District Representatives (May 2012) who voted for the cybercrime law on Third Reading. At least 35 Congressmen authored HB 5808; its counterpart bill, SB 2796, was authored by nine senators.

The 15th Congress convened a Bicameral Committee Conference on “disagreeing provisions of SBN 2796 and HBN 5808” last May 30.

According to Journal no. 46 of the Senate, it was Senator Vicente Sotto III who re-introduced the provision on libel. Reported as ‘Sotto Amendment”,  the Journal said that “Sotto stated that there are  numerous  abuses  in  technology,  particularly the  video  and  photo  uploading  and  unnecessary write-ups and  comments  in  social  networking systems.”

The inclusion of the criminal libel in the law was called an “oversight” by one senator, who happened to have filed a bill for the decriminalization of libel in the Philippines. Senator Francis Escudero in an interview with Yahoo! News said “It was a mistake… I don’t want to give any reason or motive (why some senators inserted that provision).”

Since the issuance of the TRO, legislators from both Houses of Congress have filed several bills seeking to amend RA 10175, among them: Alan Peter Cayetano, Loren Legarda and Miriam Defensor-Santiago.

Some legislators have also filed separate bills to decriminalize libel in the Revised Penal Code.

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One response to “Legislative attempts to curtail free expressionTRO stops RA 10175 implementation”

1. In Medias Res » Blog Archive » Supreme Court discourse on Cybercrime Law says:

   January 17, 2013 at 2:50 pm

   […] 15 petitions in the Supreme Court have asked for different responses: clarification, prohibition and in rejection of the law. These are asking the Supreme Court to […]

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