Editorial: A question of rights

More than a year after the extension of the temporary restraining order on the Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012, otherwise known as RA 10175, protesters to the law are gearing up for one more rally against the act on Tuesday, the anniversary of the EDSA People Power Revolution.

While the Cybercrime Prevention Act does have its merits – including the much-needed provisions against hacking, fraud and identity theft – the heavily contested provision against online libel, though ruled constitutional, hardly seems right.

RA 10175 is the kind of law that can do so much good and, at the same time, so much harm. One must simply remember the events prior to the signing of the bill, along with its provisions against online libel, to fear the latter.

Senator Vicente Sotto III’s alleged plagiarism of former US President Kennedy’s speech is not, technically, illegal because the original speech was under public domain and works under the public domain are not covered by copyright law, neither in the Philippines nor in the US. Senator Sotto’s acts were technically legal.

Moreover, the provisions against online libel in RA 10175 – Senator Sotto’s response to the subsequent criticism poured upon him by netizens – were also deemed constitutional, although barely so. Because libel is illegal in the Philippines, the internet, some people argue, should not be exempted.

However, legality is not necessarily equal to correctness. Technically, nearly everything about the law is acceptable, but the implications of such a law and the reality that we Filipinos face tell a different story.

Under RA 10175, the criticisms against Senator Sotto can be proven illegal. Although it is true that a person’s democratic rights includes not being subject to “attacks upon his honour and reputation,” the provisions against libel under the Revised Penal Code, on which RA 10175’s online libel provisions are based, are vague and open to interpretation.

It is difficult for a people with a history of struggle against exploitative rulers to trust even the most well-intentioned acts, especially something so easily twisted for one’s own gain. After all, twelve years is an incredibly long time to serve in prison for a Facebook post received poorly by the wrong people. Besides, some people in government need no outside help in sullying their honor and reputation. Some of them do that well enough for themselves.

We at The LaSallian know that managing one website’s activity is a challenge in itself, even if we, as students of DLSU, are not the experts at monitoring online activity – but as the online activity of an entire nation is undoubtedly a Herculean task, maybe the annual Php 50 million budget can buy the best experts in that field. However, there is still a question of whether such an expense in the name of monitoring what citizens say online should be made, when other potentially more pressing and more urgent concerns have yet to be addressed.

There is something to be said about a senate that prioritizes an online libel provision over, say, its Freedom of Information Act. Citizens can and should have the right to criticize its government, and a government that restrains this right because they are afraid of it probably has a very good reason to be.